


throw a little sparkle all over it

by etben



Category: Bandom
Genre: Babyfic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-06-13
Updated: 2008-06-13
Packaged: 2017-10-21 18:58:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 26,324
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/228544
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/etben/pseuds/etben
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Babies and associated ridiculousness.  NOT REAL.  NEVER HAPPENED.  Written for bandombigbang in 2008.</p>
    </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Babies and associated ridiculousness. NOT REAL. NEVER HAPPENED. Written for bandombigbang in 2008.

Normally, Frank wakes up when they're already on the road, climbing back into consciousness with the rumble of the bus around and under him, steady and soothing and constant. Mikey swears it sounds different in each state, and probably it does, but it's always the same, to Frank—always the road, the bus, morning—or, well, midafternoon—and home.

In Minnesota, though, he wakes up to shouting and an unnerving stillness. He's still groggy and exhausted, like he can't have been asleep for more than three minutes.

"The fucking fuck?" Bob sounds even more annoyed than he usually is in the mornings, and Bob is not a morning person by any stretch of anyone's imagination. "It's fucking eight in the fucking morning, you assholes," he says, which just confirms what Frank's half-open eyes are telling him.

"Gerard?" It's one of the techs—Andrew, he thinks—and he sounds sincerely freaked. Frank rolls out of his bunk, stands up, lets himself tip over until he's leaning against the other side of the tiny aisle.

"Gee," he says, poking the foot that's sticking out between the curtains. "Gee, come on, crisis." After a few seconds, Gerard's sitting up, swatting at Frank's hand and glaring, scrubbing a hand through his hair.

"The fuck?" he says, and Frank grabs his wrist and hauls him bodily out of bed, aiming them at the main room.

Andrew hands Gerard the note as soon as they're through the door, sticking it right under his nose; Frank peers over Gerard's shoulder to read.

 _you saved my life_ , it says. _please help me save hers_.

"She was on the steps this morning," Andrew says, which is when Frank realizes that he's holding a baby.

The door slams open, then, and Brian comes charging in. He looks at Gerard, then at Frank, then at the baby. His eyes go wide, and his face goes the color of dirty socks.

"Oh, fuck," he says, which pretty much sums it up.

*

Half an hour and a whole lot of questions and swearing later, Frank knows the following things:

\- The baby turned up between 7:30 and 8 AM.  
\- Nobody on the crew saw anything.  
\- The baby is 24 inches long, weighs 13 and a half pounds, and smells like baby powder.  
\- The baby has a stuffed hedgehog, which it likes to chew on.  
\- The baby also likes to chew on Ray's hair.  
\- Gerard loves her.

The thing is, that's not actually a surprise. Gerard talks a lot about how he doesn't want kids—how the world is too fucked up to want to bring another life into it, how he's not cut out for fatherhood, how he'd probably just screw the kid up anyways—but Frank knows better. Gerard won't be the world's most traditional parent, sure, but he'll do a good job. He _cares_ about kids, about helping them grow up self-aware and strong and happy; it's one of the more stupidly endearing things about him. It sometimes comes off as hokey or insincere, but Frank's had enough late-night conversations with Gerard, has seen him interact with fans and relatives, and he knows that it's all real.

About a year ago, when they had a half-day in New Mexico, Frank bought him a cactus.

"...a cactus?" Gerard looked a little underwhelmed, holding the pot and staring down at it.

Frank had shrugged. "I figure, start small, portable, and hardy." Really, he'd figured that Gerard could use something to take care of, something that wasn't himself or the band to focus on, and cacti were about as indestructible as you could get.

Gerard had rolled his eyes and acted all offended, but he'd taken really good care of the cactus—named it Gladys, watered it once every two weeks with no small amount of pride, moved it around the bus to make sure it had the best possible light. It had survived the rest of that tour, to everybody's shock—Frank's pretty sure that it's in the Way family kitchen, these days.

Which is great for the cactus, but a baby—that's something else altogether. Babies are Serious Business, as far as Frank's concerned.

Gee seems to think otherwise, though: he's got the baby all cuddled in his arms, looking down at it with the world's stupidest expression on his face, and he's fucking cooing. The rest of the guys aren't any better: even Ray, who's sitting back out of range to protect his hair, starts grinning like an idiot when the baby twitches or rolls over or burps or whatever. Mikey's sitting next to Gee, playing with the baby's feet; his hands look even more enormous than usual, in comparison.

Only Bob seems to properly understand this situation: he keeps staring blankly at the baby, leaving the bus, then coming back to stare some more. Bob is Frank's favorite person ever; the third time Bob goes outside, Frank follows him.

"Fuck!" Bob says, as soon as they're off the bus, "fuck, fuck, fucking fuckers of fuck." He takes a deep breath, then turns around, smacking straight into Frank. "Oh, hey," he says, grinning a little. "Sorry, just—I didn't want to swear in front of the kid, you know?"

Frank stares at him. Bob stares back. "I don't want to give her bad habits, Frank," he says. "Fuck, we should probably get a swear jar, right?"

Bob is no longer Frank's favorite. When he goes back in, Frank stays outside, watching the sky get lighter, kicking rocks along the sandy desolation of the parking lot.

Eventually, Brian comes walking up, tossing his cell phone from hand to hand.

"Frank, hey," he says. "So I just got off the phone with Child Protective Services." He sighs. "They can't get anyone over here until late this afternoon, probably, but they can have someone at the venue in Saint Paul by six." He shrugs, rubs the back of his neck with one hand, rolls his eyes. "It's not the best plan ever, but at least we don't have to cancel the show, this way."

"Yeah," Frank says. "Yeah, that should work." They stand there for a second more, just for a moment more, and then Brian shakes his head.

"Yeah," he says, smiling a little. "I mean—just, _fuck_." He takes a deep breath, then steps past Frank, on to the steps of the bus, pulling the door open.

Gerard is there in a flash, beaming down at them like a demented clown.

"Guys, her name is Katie," he says, and oh, they are so very screwed.

*

The name on the birth certificate is _Katherine Elizabeth Way_ , born June 14th, 2004.

"She's gonna be four months old next week," Gerard says. "Isn't that neat, Frank?" He's holding her against his chest, supporting her head and neck carefully, naturally.

"She's also your _daughter_ , Gee," Frank snaps. "Which, can I just say _what the fuck?_ , here?"

Gerard frowns at him, cuddling the baby a little closer. " _Frank_ ," he says. "Seriously, Bob's right: we need a fucking swear jar." He blinks, glancing down at the baby, who yawns back. "Sorry, Katie," he says, and oh, for _fuck's sake_.

"Gerard!" He's playing with Katie's tiny fingers; Frank pokes his shoulder until he looks up. "Gee, how the hell did this happen?"

"Well, Frank," Ray says, smiling a little, "when a man and a woman love each other very much—"

"Shut the fuck up," Brian says, and thank God for Brian. "It's a legitimate question. Gee, we were in _Europe_ last September, and on the west coast for the entire month before that, and as your manager and your friend, I'd really like to know what the hell is going on here."

Gerard shrugs. He's looking down at Katie, not meeting any of their eyes, carefully focused on her hand and the way it wraps loosely around his thumb. "I don't really know, guys."

Brian rolls his eyes—Frank's not even looking at him, but he can tell. "Well, Gee, your name's on the birth certificate, which would tend to suggest that you know something." After a long moment, where Gerard stares at Katie's fingernails and none of the rest of them say anything, Brian sighs.

"I got in touch with CPS—they'll have someone at the venue tonight when we get there." Katie makes a little whimpering noise, and Gerard hushes her, bouncing her in his arms.

It should look awkward: Gerard Way, rockstar, holding a baby dressed in duckling-print jammies. Should, but doesn't—Gerard holds her naturally, easily, like he's spent his whole life preparing for this instead of screaming to crowds and strutting around onstage doing inappropriate things to feather boas and his bandmates.

"That's cool, I guess," Mikey says, when it's clear that Gerard's not going to say anything. "I mean, maybe she can get us, like, a crib or something."

"A crib would be awesome," Gerard says, and Frank rolls his eyes, heads for the bunks. It's probably too much to hope to catch up on lost sleep, but Frank's a hopeful guy.

*

Frank falls asleep within moments, and wakes up just past noon. For a while, he can't quite figure out why he's awake—the bus is still moving, rumbling across some lousy road in north wherever, and he's still completely fucking exhausted. He stares at the bottom of Bob's bunk for a while, trying to find something interesting about the smooth, featureless plastic. After a minute, though, he rolls out into the aisle, catches his hip on the ladder, swears, staggers out to the front lounge.

"Frankie!" Gerard glances over the back of the couch, beams at him. "Hey, you're awake!" Mikey's sprawled at the other end of the couch, out of Frank's line of sight, but he flaps one lazy hand over the edge at Frank. Ray's got his headphones in and is scribbling something on a notepad, his fro bobbing; he doesn't look up.

"The bus smells like baby shit," Frank says. "Baby shit, Gee." He walks around the couch to sit in a free chair, pull his feet up, and stare at them all.

Gerard sniffs, then sniffs again, then stares down at the baby in his lap, looking vaguely impressed. "Dude, Katie," he says, "That's fucking gross."

"Swear jar," Mikey says. "Also, hey, should I call mom?" He doesn't even wait for an answer, just digs out his sidekick and dials.

"No way, Gee," Ray says, still not looking up. "I bought the diapers at the last stop, when you were showing her off to the techs and the drivers and that chick from Oregon. My job is done."

"Hey, Ma," Mikey says. "No, everything's fine—well, I mean, Gerard accidentally adopted a baby—no, he's changing her now, he can't talk." Gerard flips him off, but Mikey just settles further into the couch. Gerard pouts, then looks up at Frank.

"Frankie," he says, and Frank shakes his head.

"Sorry, man," he says. "But as the one sane person on this entire bus, I'm pretty sure my official job is to watch and laugh."

Gerard sighs, staring down at the kid, then stands up. "Fine, then," he says. "I mean, people change diapers every day. It can't possibly be as hard as, say, coming to terms with the fact that my _entire band_ has _deserted me._ " He pauses again, but they've all known him way too long to fall for that, so in the end he winds up just grabbing the bag of diapers and laying the kid out on the carpet.

Frank scoots the chair a little closer. It's hard to watch and mock if he can't actually see what's going on, after all.

Gerard gets her pajamas off without too much trouble, then spends a few minutes scrabbling helplessly at the diaper itself before Frank sighs and hands him the scissors from the table.

"It's not Fort Knox, Gee," he says.

"Fu—screw you, Frankie," he says, glancing over at Mikey. "It's not as easy as you'd think, okay—oh, _gross_." Frank looks away, but he can still smell it; on some level, he's actually kind of impressed that something so small can stink that much.

Gerard seems to agree. "Dude, seriously," he says, "how is that even possible? You're freaking _tiny_. Oh, hey, no," he adds, "hey, no, come on, don't _kick_ —"

Frank sighs, scooting out of the chair and onto the floor, grabbing the kid's feet before she can get Gerard in the face again.

"Thanks, Frankie," he says, looking entirely too self-satisfied for a man holding a dirty diaper. "You're the best."

"My involvement ends here, okay?" Frank wants them to be very clear on that point. "There is a gross job, and there is a not-so-gross job, and I am doing the one that probably won't get me covered in baby crap."

"Whatever," Gerard says. "Hand me the wipes?"

The rest of the changing process goes pretty smoothly, and soon baby Katie is back in her pajamas, looking a little confused but mostly okay about the whole thing. Gerard looks down at her, half-pleased and half-annoyed, and then looks down at his hands and makes a face.

"Okay," he says, "okay, so, I'm going to go and wash my hands a whole lot." That's a good plan—that's a _really_ good plan, Frank thinks. Gerard gets up, being careful not to touch anything, and heads for the kitchenette. "Keep an eye on her, will you?"

Frank can think of about a million and three things he'd rather be doing, actually. He doesn't want to like this baby, doesn't have the same idiotic fascination with her that Gee and Mikey and Ray and even Bob have—not to mention most of the crew. She's small and soft and helpless and, yeah, okay, pretty fucking cute, all unfocused blue eyes and fuzzy dark hair and chubby, uncoordinated limbs—but she's not theirs, and they don't get to keep her, and he wishes to fuck that everybody else would fucking remember that for more than three minutes at a time.

He leans over her, looking closer, and she flails at him, cooing, smacking him on the cheek with one tiny hand. When he doesn't pull away fast enough, she grabs onto his hair and yanks; he's had worse, but it still hurts.

"Ow," he says, "fuck, fuck, _ow_." Pulling away just makes her grip harder and hurts like hell; he has to detach her from the chunk of hair she's grabbed gradually, one finger at a time, until she's clinging to his pinky instead. That's about as good as it's going to get, he figures, sitting back and shaking his hair out of his face. "I deserved that, I guess," he says, mostly to himself. "Waving it in your face like that—you're a baby, babies grab shit, right?" She looks up at him, calm as anything, and gurgles.

"Having fun?" Gerard's got a cup of coffee, the asshole, and he's standing in the doorway and fucking beaming at Frank, like this is all some big game, like it's a wonderful new adventure instead of a clusterfuck of epic proportions.

"I'm gonna take another nap," Frank says, standing up; "gonna try to catch up on the rest of my sleep." Gee frowns, but he lets Frank go, which is the important thing.

*

The next time he wakes up, the bus has slowed down, turning rumbling corners every now and then; it's just after 3, which means they're probably pulling into the venue. Frank stays where he is for a moment, just breathing, then sighs and rolls out of his bunk. Predictably, the bus slows to a stop just as he's opening the door to the lounge, and he's knocked off balance, grabbing at the doorframe to keep himself from falling over.

"Frank," Gerard says. "Hey, glad you're up." His voice sounds weird and strangled, and when Frank looks over, he's wearing his designated clean t-shirt, the one he keeps in case of emergencies requiring them to impersonate responsible adults. They've all got one, stashed in a bag on top of the fridge; Frank's has an American flag on it. He rubs his eyes, scratches his hip, stares sleepily around the bus, trying to figure out what's going on and whether or not he needs to go back and put on some pants.

There's a woman sitting at the table, he realizes—brown hair, brown eyes, tanned skin, lots of teeth. He stares at her, and she smiles at him; he glances away, towards Gerard and Brian, raising his eyebrows and trying to blink himself awake.

"This is Cheryl," Brian says, leaning back in his seat. "She's with Child Protective Services."

"Child Protective—" Frank says, and then, "what the f—" and then, because even if he thinks that this whole baby-adoption plan is ridiculous and impossible, it's probably still bad manners to swear at someone who rescues kids for a living, "sorry, I mean—um."

She grins again, and seriously, this woman has way too many teeth. Probably freaks kids the fuck out, Frank thinks—but then again, Katie's been up close and personal with Gerard for several hours without any screaming, so maybe not. Kids are fucking resilient, anyways.

"So, as I was saying," Cheryl says, "our preliminary search for the mother hasn't turned up any results, but that's not exactly uncommon in these kinds of situations."

"What is common, then?" Mikey asks. Frank hesitates, then sits down on the arm of the couch next to Gerard, propping his arm on Gerard's head; Gerard grumbles, but doesn't pull away.

"It's a mixed bag, really," Cheryl says. "Most of the time, though, we're looking at a young woman who doesn't feel prepared to raise a baby alone—and in a lot of cases, they're right." She glances down at her stack of papers and sighs, looking older all of the sudden. "If we can't find the father, we're looking at foster care, ideally adoption—she's young, so if her health is good she's got a pretty good chance of getting out of the system."

"And if you could find the father?" Gerard's tone is relaxed, but his shoulders are tense against Frank's side, and oh, fuck. Frank shifts his hand down, resting it against Gerard's shoulder and digging his fingers in hard. Gerard's good, though, and doesn't so much as twitch, even though it's got to be hurting like a mother.

Cheryl frowns. "If we can find him, and he looks like a good bet for custody, then usually we'd give her over to him, at least on a probationary basis. Usually, though, there's a good reason—" she breaks off, glancing first at Gerard, then at Brian. "I was under the impression, though, that you weren't—that is, that the birth certificate was a fake."

There's a long pause, then. Ray goes still, Bob stops tapping his fingers on the table, and Mikey's eyes widen just slightly. Cheryl doesn't seem to notice, though; she keeps glancing from Gerard to Brian and back again, biting her lip, uncertain.

"I mean," Gerard says. "I mean, I—I said that she wasn't, you know, mine, but—" he pulls in on himself a little, and Frank leans forward to keep his balance. "I mean, I don't know," Gerard says finally. "I don't think so, but I can't say for sure. I had—" he shrugs, "—I mean, I've cleaned up, since then, but for a while—" He looks up, the back of his head brushing Frank's arm; his hair is clean, soft and strange and flyaway.

"She could be," he says finally. "She could be mine." There's a noise from the car seat—and when the fuck they got a car seat, Frank really doesn't want to know—and Gerard stands up like he's been sitting on a pin this whole time and didn't realize it, going over to kneel by Katie. Frank slides down into his empty seat, rubbing cramps out of his fingers.

"Well," Cheryl says, watching Gerard, smiling just a little. "That changes things a little, I guess."

The conversation goes on, but Frank doesn't really follow it; he's too busy staring at Gerard while pretending not to be staring at Gerard, trying to decide whether or not to stand up and say what everybody except for Cheryl is thinking.

Gerard's lying; he has to be. He's been clean for over a year, now, staying in and drawing vampires and zombies and kittens instead of going out drinking with the techs. And even before, even during the worst of it, Gerard was never that kind of guy. He's always been weirdly old-fashioned about relationships, as long as Frank's known him—no sketchy sex with groupies, no anonymous bar hookups, no nothing, mostly.

If he hadn't heard Gerard jerk off so much, Frank would be a little freaked—but as awkward as it is to hear someone rubbing one out in their bunk, it's vaguely reassuring, when it's Gerard. At least it proves that he has a sex drive, that he's not some weird lead singer robot.

Plus, it's not like Gerard's loud, or even any messier than you'd expect, although it's possible that Frank is biased. Cortez is loud; Mikeyway is messy. Gerard is somewhere in between, and after a while it all blends together.

"And you're going to grow up and do whatever the fuck you want, you know that, right?" Gerard leans in and brushes his nose against Katie's. "If you want to be an astronaut or a professor or a professional chef or a deep-sea diver, you're going to make it happen." He glances up, catches Frank's eye, shrugs. "I mean, I want her to be happy, you know?" he says. "And being a rockstar isn't for everyone, after all." It should be ridiculous, or even sickening; instead, like so much of what Gerard does, it's heartfelt and earnest and makes Frank's fucking stomach flip over. They look natural and right together, like a family.

"You know, Gee," Mikey says, poking his toes under Frank's leg, "before you teach her how to save the world, you might want to consider getting her another pair of pants." Frank glances over, and, yeah, her pants are a little stained—just baby food, it looks like, but it's not as though they have a washer on the bus. "Baby food, too, probably," Mikey adds. "The stuff we've got isn't going to last her very long." He brushes his hair out of his face, fidgets with his glasses, scratches the bridge of his nose—

"Oh, fuck you," Frank says, "Nose Goes is not an appropriate way to determine baby-shopping duties."

"Says the man with a finger on his nose," Gerard puts in, which, seriously, fuck Gerard, too. Just because it's a stupid system doesn't mean he's not going to play.

Ray and Bob stare at him, their hands conspicuously in their laps, and Frank raises his eyebrows at them.

"I bought diapers, man," Ray says, going back to his magazine. "I'm exempt."

"Fucking—fine, okay," Frank says, because they seriously did need diapers there. "That's got to fucking run out sometime soon, though, right?" Ray just shrugs, gives them all a shit-eating grin, and goes back to whatever he was reading. "Bob?"

Bob shrugs. "I want to get some peanut butter," he says.

"What, and you can't wrangle Gerard at the same time?"

"I'm getting peanut butter," Bob says again, as though that's the end of the discussion. Which, given Bob, it really kind of is. Frank glances over at Brian, but he's still busy with Cheryl, throwing out words like "regular visits" and "coordinate schedules" and "fax". Plus, it probably wouldn't really help Gerard's case if Frank went over and asked Brian to arbitrate a game of Nose Goes—not that he wants to help Gerard's stupid fucking ridiculous baby-stealing plan, but on a matter of general principle he doesn't want to look like an idiot in front of a social worker.

"Fine," he says, "fucking fine. Tomorrow, we'll go buy baby shit. Somebody has to be reasonable around here, after all," he adds, looking over at Gerard and Katie.

Gerard just fucking beams, though. "Hear that, Katie?" he says. "Frank likes you!"

Frank rolls his eyes—because, well, _yes_ , but that's not really the point. He likes babies just fine, wants some of his own someday even, but that doesn't mean he thinks that _stealing_ one is a good plan. He's trying to figure out a way to pinch Gerard in the side without making him drop Katie when Brian and Cheryl stand up.

"All right, well," she says, smiling at them all. "I don't want to keep you guys." She shakes Brian's hand, and Gerard's, and then Frank's; as she's heading out the front, Cortez pokes his head in, giving them the high-sign.

"Soundcheck," Gerard says, standing up. "Um." He's staring down at Katie, holding her against his chest, and he keeps glancing between her, Brian, and Frank.

Brian sighs. "I'll take her, don't worry," he says. "Go on." Gerard hands her over carefully, and looks back at her three times before he makes it out the front door.

The show is high-energy but kind of weird; Frank feels twitchy and off-balance, like his skin is a size smaller than usual. Gerard keeps going on about change and choice and taking responsibility for your actions, and he can't seem to stop hugging them all. Ray rolls with it, and Mikey just looks longsuffering. Behind his kit, Bob grins and flips them off, then yelps and swears when Gerard ducks around the high-hat and buries his face in Bob's hair.

Gerard plasters himself to Frank's side, gasping into his ear while the crowd screams the words back at them. It's more than a little gross—Frank's pretty sure Gerard hasn't showered since they were in New England—but it's hard to get too angry at Gerard when he's this excited about something, full up with manic energy and glee. Frank leans back enough to bite Gerard's neck, but not very hard, just barely enough to even bruise. Gerard shivers and pulls away, anyway, which was the whole point.

Frank drops to his knees and plays the chorus, eyes closed.

*

"Get up, Frank," Gerard says. "We're going grocery shopping!"

"Motherfuck." Frank kicks out into the aisle, hoping to catch Gerard before he escapes, but all he gets is empty air and Gerard cackling at him from the main room. He thinks about staying in bed and ignoring it, but ignoring Gerard is not, historically, a tactic that works very well. Besides, Frank wants bananas.

They make a list, of course. Lists are Frank's first impulse, faced with grocery shopping and Gerard simultaneously; otherwise, they're running the risk of repeating the great broccoli-and-jellybeans debacle of 2003. It's written on the back of a take-out menu from Omaha, and it looks something like this:

\- baby clothes (GENDER NEUTRAL)  
\- baby food (vegan? BABIES AREN'T VEGAN FRANK shut up!)  
\- more diapers (YES)  
\- other stuff (COFFEE yes duh coffee)

It's not a very complicated list, but it takes them half an hour to actually make it, and Gerard gets an elbow to the face in the process. An accident, of course.

Around midday, they pull into Stevens Point, Wisconsin, which—according to Steve the Bus Dude—has a Target. Immediately, Gerard lifts Katie out of the car seat, where she's been chilling, and starts wrapping her in a blanket. Frank watches. He's not going to say anything, he's not going to say anything, he's not going to—

"Gee," Ray says, "Gee, what the fuck are you doing?" Thank God for Ray, even if he does immediately look guilty for swearing in front of the kid.

Gerard doesn't look up. "I'm not going to take her outside like this, Ray," he says, tugging on her fleecy pajamas. There was another set tucked into the car seat, and this one is blue, with tiny gold stars all over. "I mean, it's not that cold for you or me," which is a lie, because Gerard totally spend half an hour complaining about how cold Massachusetts was, last week, when he was only outside for maybe half an hour at most, "but babies are, like, delicate and shi—and stuff, you know?" He frowns, shakes the blanket out, and starts tucking it around her again. "We need to keep her warm."

Ray takes a deep breath, glances at Frank, and lets it out in a huff, shaking his head. "Gee," he says again. "Gerard. Think about this." He waits, drumming his fingers on his knees, until eventually Gerard stops worrying about how the blanket is draping and looks up at them.

"Look, Gee," Ray says, slowly and carefully. "I support you in this, um—with Katie, and all." Gerard nods, but he's starting to look suspicious. "But, I mean—dude, you know you can't take her to Target, right?"

Gerard just stares at him. He really doesn't get it, Frank realizes. Gerard honestly doesn't understand why taking a baby to a Target might be problematic, especially a baby who isn't _theirs_.

Gerard Fucking Way. Seriously.

"I mean," Ray says, "you're—you're pretty noticeable, dude, you know? And, like. Like, what if some asshole with a camera saw you guys, and took pictures?"

Gerard scowls, holding Katie a little closer; she shifts a little but otherwise seems okay with her potential adoptive father being a complete freak of nature. Which is good, honestly, since it's not like that's ever going to change.

"I'm not going to change my life just because some fucker with a camera wants to be famous," Gerard says, staring down at Katie. "That's no fucking way to raise a kid."

"Yeah, but," Mikey says. "Gee, what if it makes things harder with, like, Cheryl and shit? Like," he shrugs. "What if they think you're being a bad parent, by exposing her to that kind of shit at a really young age?" Gee wavers—Frank can see it, can see him weighing the desire to be a good parent against the desire to never let Katie out of his sight again.

"Yeah," he says, finally, "yeah, okay." He stares at Mikey, then at Ray. "Take care of her, motherfuckers, or I'll—"

"Of course," Ray says, "dude, of course, Gee." Mikey just rolls his eyes, like of course he's going to take perfectly good care of Gerard's accidental baby.

"And you," Gerard says, looking down at Katie, "you behave yourself for Mikey and Ray, okay?"

Katie looks up at them all, then blows a spit bubble right in Gerard's face. Maybe, just maybe, this kid thing isn't all bad.

*

They pull into the Target parking lot and park on the far left side, taking up most of an empty row. Gerard hands the kid over to Mikey—

("Uncle Mikey," Mikey insists. Gee thinks about it, then nods.

"Uncle Mikey, yeah," he says, like it even matters, and can they fucking go yet?

"Family is important, Frank," Ray says, and he sounds serious but he's totally laughing at them all behind his hair. Frank has known Ray Toro for a long fucking time, at this point; he can tell.)

\- and lets Bob and Frank drag him off the bus and into the store.

Target is the one piece of the real world they see on a regular basis, and it's kind of weird. At this point in the tour, Frank's used to the dark and bustle of backstage, the adrenaline of a show, the disorganization and general grime of the bus after four weeks on the road. Target is the complete opposite: large and colorful, bright and glossy and bafflingly well-organized. Venues have personality, quirks of the sound system and weird staircases and specific graffiti, but all Targets are the same, no matter where they are.

Gerard feels it too, Frank knows, and it freaks him out—makes him feel like he's living in a cartoon, and not in a cool way. Frank bumps their shoulders together, and they stand in the entryway for a minute, just staring and readjusting.

"Christ," Bob says, pushing past them. "The two of you, I don't even know." He walks past the carts and hangs a left, heading towards the food aisles; Gerard grabs Frank's wrist and starts towing him forward, towards the huge hanging pictures of women with improbably fat babies. Frank follows—he doesn't want Gerard to get lost in a Target, even if it kind of would serve him right—and of course smacks straight into Gerard's back when he stops dead in the middle of an aisle.

"Fuck, Frank," he says, and he sounds upset enough that Frank actually feels bad for him. "Fuck, look at this bullshit."

Frank looks. It's all little jumpsuits with snaps up the belly, most of them with feet and a few with hoods, too. Half of them are blue or red, with trucks or dinosaurs on them; the other half are pink and ruffly. It's about what Frank had been expecting, but Gerard is already ranting about internalized misogyny and societal expectations and how no daughter of his is going to play into that kind of patriarchal bullshit, seriously, Frank, what kind of babies need ruffles?

"But what if she likes ruffles, Gee?" he asks, only half-listening. Gerard's ranting has a rhythm to it, and after a few tirades it's pretty easy to know what to say to keep him going, without actually having to listen to more than a quarter of what he says.

(Frank's record is four hours and twenty-eight minutes, but Ray's gotten all the way to five hours and nine minutes. Mikey's not allowed to compete, because he and Gerard have some kind of freaky fraternal mind-meld. Mikey can raise an eyebrow and get a two-hour rant out of Gerard; the last time he actually tried, Gerard wouldn't shut up for three days. Impressive, sure, but Frank would really rather be sleeping.)

"That's not the point, Frank," Gerard says, picking up something green and fuzzy and dropping it into the cart. "It's not about personal preference—it's about the institutions in place that only sell pink shit to little girls, and—"

"Gee," Frank says, "Gerard, shut up and come here." He doesn't turn away from the wall, and eventually Gerard comes up behind him and rests his head on Frank's shoulder.

"I mean, I hate to play into the whole _image_ ," he says eventually. "Like, I don't want to get locked into a single aesthetic, you know?"

"Shut up, Gerard," Frank says. "They're fucking awesome and you know it." He picks one up to look closer: it's black, with little black wings—bat wings—between the arms and the body, and a hood with tiny black ears on it. Down to the right, there are some with bones on them, like a skeleton; the sign over Frank's head says that they glow in the dark. It's completely fucking badass.

Gerard grabs the tag and flips it over, checking the size. "Six months," he says, "so, okay, four months would be—"

"Get it anyway," Frank says, reaching around Gerard and grabbing a few more (4mo, 8mo, 10 mo, 12 mo, 14 mo). "I mean, she's going to grow out of it, and then it's just going to be turkeys and snowmen and shit." Gerard stares at him, but doesn't say anything. Frank's glad: he'd hate to have to punch Gerard in the face in public. They've got pumpkin costumes, too, which aren't totally stupid; Frank grabs a few, and also some of the less ridiculous regular-colored ones.

When he comes back, there's definitely something pink and ruffly in the basket, hidden under a teddy bear with fangs and a red blanket, but whatever.

"Hey," Bob says, wheeling his cart down the aisle to join them, "this isn't too bad." He picks up another tiny outfit—white, but with multicolored splatters of fake paint all over it—and drops it into their cart.

Bob's cart seems fuller than usual for a mid-week spur-of-the-moment grocery run. Frank peeks in, and sees that in addition to peanut butter, whole-wheat bread, and pickles, Bob's got actual baby food, tiny jars with chubby-cheeked infants on the labels.

"I got more formula, too," Bob says. "But we're probably going to want to start food soon, at least the mushy stuff." Frank stares at him, and he shrugs. "I called my mom, motherfucker. Also, we should probably get more diapers."

Diapers are just around the corner; they get a special trash can for them, too, even though Gerard rolls his eyes, because Frank is not spending any more time than absolutely necessary smelling baby shit in his living space. Bob calls his mom again, and she directs them to get baby wipes, Vaseline, and a bag to stick it all in.

"Babies are expensive, Robert," she says, loud enough that Frank can hear her. "Although, really, I thought better of you than—"

"It's not me, Ma," Bob says. "It's Gerard." Gerard flips him off, and Bob rolls his eyes. "No, ma—it's complicated, okay? Trust me, I don't really get it either." She says something else, too soft for Frank to hear anything but the rise and fall of her voice; Bob nods and turns to Gerard, holding the phone away from his ear. "She says she expected better of you, too," he says, "and also that she considers Katie an honorary grandchild."

Gerard, comparing two different diaper bags—diaper bags, seriously, what the fuck—nods. "Tell her we'll stop by when we're in Chicago." They would have done that anyway, really: Chicago is Bob's home, which makes it their home too, in a way, like an extension of Jersey even though it's totally not. Plus, Bob's mom makes a mean vegetarian casserole. Still, it seems to make Bob's mom happy, if the squeaking on the phone is anything to go by; Bob shakes his head when he hangs up, like his ears are ringing.

"You know she's going to start knitting, right?" he asks. "Like, epic knitting."

Gerard throws one of the bags in the cart and stands up, shaking his shoulders out. "Yeah, so? What's wrong with knitting, Bob?"

Bob shrugs. "Nothing, really," he says. "But if any reindeer sweaters come of this, I am not the one who's going to wear them, okay? Just so we're clear."

"Me either," Frank says, and Gerard rolls his eyes.

"Fine, whatever," he says. "Are we set?"

"Yes," Frank says, even though 'set' is probably the exact opposite of what they are. They've got enough for the time being, is the important thing, and now it is time to get the fuck out of middle America and back to the bus.

Frank's a little worried about the check out—they haven't been recognized so far, but they're also not the luckiest band in the whole world—but nobody seems to realize that three-fifths of My Chemical Romance just came in to buy out their baby supply section. The girl a few rows down gives them a weird look, then shakes herself a little, like they can't possibly be who she thinks they are; Frank pulls his hood up a little more and starts loading stuff onto the conveyor belt.

"Oh, my," says the clerk in their aisle, ringing up their purchases. "Looks like somebody's got a brand new bundle of joy!" Her name is Doris, and she looks about eighty million years old.

Gerard nods, shifting his weight. "Yeah, we're—well, we spend a lot of time on the road, so we're stocking up." Doris doesn't seem to think very much of that, and she gives Frank and Bob a stern look, managing somehow to become even wrinklier in the process.

"Well," she says finally, "I hope these boys are taking care of you, young lady." It takes them all a second to realize that she's talking to Gerard, and then Bob doubles over in a coughing fit and Gerard's cheeks turn pink. Frank bites the inside of his cheek and looks at the tabloids, ignoring Gerard's glare; the abominable snowman has apparently married a mermaid in a Vegas wedding.

"Yeah," Gerard says, eventually, "Don't worry, they're being very helpful."

Doris nods, her hair wobbling precariously. "And you've got your brother, too—that's good, you should have your family around at a trying time like this." Frank turns and stares at her for a second, trying to figure out how she knew Mikey was with them—maybe she's a fan? or maybe her granddaughter, more likely—before realizing that she means him, that she thinks he and Gerard are siblings, not just friends and bandmates. It kind of makes him want to scowl, but then she leans over and pats Gerard's cheek and calls him "missy" again, and he's back to chewing on his lip and trying not to giggle.

He makes it all the way outside, but only barely, and winds up clinging to Bob as they wheel the carts across the parking lot, both of them laughing too hard to breathe, much less hold themselves upright. Gerard, wheeling the other cart, is sulking.

"Did you see her glasses?" he asks. "She's got to be, like, blind, seriously."

Bob nods seriously. "Whatever you say, Miss Way." That sets Frank off again, which sets Bob off again, and they laugh all the way back to the bus.

The front lounge is quiet and empty, except for Mikey, stretched out on the couch with his headphones on, so they drop their purchase on his feet and ask where everybody is. He wakes up enough to wave vaguely toward the back of the bus, then rolls over onto a jar of peas and falls back asleep.

Gerard eases the door to the back studio open, then looks back and pulls Frank forward so that he can see. Katie's on the floor in her car seat, wrapped up in a nest of blankets, drooling a little but otherwise looking pretty alert for somebody who's basically just a digestive system. Ray's staring at her with this stupid little smile on his face, playing something soft and slow on his acoustic.

"And that," he says, "that's a diminished seventh, see—" he plays one, note by note and then all together, "- see how that sounds?" Katie burbles and coos, and Ray beams at her. "Yeah," he says, "yeah, and -"

"Ray," Frank says, "Ray, seriously, she's three months old." Ray looks up at him, startled, his fingers flattening on the neck of the guitar. Frank feels like an asshole, a little, but it's not like that's anything new. For the first time, he wishes his goddamn band would dream a little smaller; grand plans are awesome, but there's such a thing as having a little bit of fucking perspective.

"Um," Ray says. "Hey, you're back."

"Yeah," Frank says, turning around. "I'm going to catch some more sleep before tonight."

"Can't babies hear, like, in the womb or some shit?" Bob asks, but Frank doesn't wait around to hear the response; he climbs into his bunk and pulls the pillow over his head and sacks out.

*

Frank wakes up just in time for soundcheck, that night; he doesn't even feel it when they pull into the venue. Things go pretty much as usual: Gerard entrusts Katie to Brian, and if he maybe spends more of the show looking off stage left than usual, well, the crowd is too into it to really notice. It's not their best show ever, but it's a good show, energetic and positive; Gerard licks Frank's ear twice, and does something with Ray that has the whole pit shrieking and pointing, texting their friends.

Frank grins at them, drops to his knees, throws himself into the chorus.

Outside, on the line, it's just like usual, for a while—signing and smiling and saying hi, the kids somewhere between excited and exhausted, propped up on each other and beaming. Frank's good through all of that, sweat drying on his forehead, feeling the evening catching up to him in all of the right ways—

—and then he gets back on the bus. Gee's got Katie dressed up in one of the bat costumes from earlier, and he's holding her against his chest and helping her wave at Mikey's sidekick. He's still sweaty from the show, still in his onstage pants and shirt; he probably smells _disgusting_. Katie just giggles, though, flopping her arms around awkwardly, leaning back against Gerard.

"Frankie, hey," Gerard says, but Frank just waves and keeps on going, back to the bunks, curling up with his face to the wall. He thinks he hears Ray outside his bunk, at one point, but he doesn't move and whoever it is goes away after a while.

The next morning, Gerard looks like shit, like he used to get after a week-long bender, sprawled out with his legs over one arm of the couch and his head in the middle, eyes closed.

"Fuck, Gee," Frank says, dropping down next to him. "What the hell happened to you?" Gerard blinks his eyes open, bleary and exhausted, and stares up at him.

"Katie," he says, which doesn't make much sense, unless Katie is secretly a baby-shaped robot monster and she and Gerard got into a battle to the death last night. In which case Frank is actually kind of impressed; he wouldn't have thought that Gerard could fight off any kind of robot monster, even one less than a foot tall.

Gerard sighs. "She didn't want to go to sleep last night—I think we, like, overstimulated her or something." He rolls his shoulders and neck, edging his way up into Frank's lap; Frank takes the hint and turns sideways, rubbing Gerard's temples. "She didn't get to sleep until, like," Gerard yawns, "fuck, seven thirty, maybe?" Frank glances at the clock: it's ten twenty-four, so Gerard's been out for less than three hours. Katie, of course, is curled up in her little carry-case, snug and smug.

"You want to go back to bed, maybe catch a few more hours of sleep?" Frank asks, but Gerard's already out cold, his head heavy in Frank's hands. Frank sighs, and works on wriggling his left hand free enough to snag the copy of AP that's sitting on the floor a few feet away. Katie stays asleep for the next couple of hours, and by the time she's waking up again, Mikey and Bob are both up, stumbling vaguely around the kitchen and banging pots and pans together.

"Shut the fuck up and come feed the baby, assholes," he says. "Gerard's fucking sleeping." He's not, actually, as Frank discovers when he looks back down, but Gerard seems content to tip himself back up into a sitting position and watch while Mikey and Bob work on getting baby Katie some nutrition. She handles the bottle pretty well, but doesn't seem very impressed by the jars of baby food.

"No, see," Mikey says, "see, it's like an airplane—"

"Has she _seen_ an airplane, though?" Bob asks, frowning. "Like, I don't know how that's a useful simile, here."

Mikey stares at him, then at Katie, then at the spoon. "Huh," he says. "Good point." He thinks about it for a while, staring off into the middle distance, then scoops up another spoonful of mushy carrots. "Okay, so," he says, "it's like a whole big crowd of people, and they're all going into the venue, right?"

"Dude," Frank says, "you realize that makes her a cannibal, right?" Next to him, Gerard giggles, leaning against Frank's shoulder. "Not that that's not kind of appropriate, under the circumstances."

"Yeah," Gerard says, nodding. "I'm just glad we aren't doing all those blood photoshoots anymore, you know? I wouldn't want her to, like, get a fixation or some shit."

"Swear jar!" Mikey says, spinning around to point at them and sending orange glop flying. Frank raises his eyebrow, but there's actually a jar on the table, labeled with all sorts of cartoon-style swears, asterisks and dollar signs and little angry clouds of dust.

"We made it while you guys were out," Mikey says. "Fifty cents a word."

Frank rolls his eyes, but Gerard nods again, leaning down to snag his jacket. "That's fair," he says. "Enough that people will take it seriously, but not so much that, like, nobody can pay it." He digs a crumpled ten out of his pocket, shrugs, and drops it in. "I'm sure I'll use it up." That kind of defeats the purpose of a swear jar, in Frank's opinion, but at least this way Katie's college education will be covered. If they keep her that long. Which they aren't.

"Sure thing, Gerard," Bob says, bouncing Katie a little on his lap. "Although, hey, does onstage stuff—mother _fuck_!" Katie's got one little hand in his beard, pulling as hard as she can and giggling like a lunatic; Bob is trying to get free without knocking her off his lap or cursing a blue streak, and kind of failing. Mikey and Gerard are both laughing too hard to be useful, and Ray is off somewhere else, where the laws of nature are still in effect.

"Oh, for fuck's sake," Frank says, standing up and stomping over. He lifts Katie off of Bob's lap, then tickles her gently until she lets go of Bob's beard. "That's better, hmm?" She makes a face and kicks her legs, so he boosts her up onto his shoulder and pats her back.

"You're good at that," Gerard says, and Frank turns around to face him.

"I've got cousins, you know?" he says. "I could either learn this shit or have my mom shun me for the rest of my life. Yeah, yeah, I know," he says, when Katie whines a little. "They're all a bunch of fucking idiots." Katie hiccups, then burps, and Frank feels something warm and wet starting to soak through his t-shirt.

Behind him, Gerard squeaks, then gasps, and then falls off the couch laughing; Bob and Mikey aren't any better.

"That's my girl!" Gerard crows, every inch the proud father, and Frank sighs, suddenly exhausted.

"Whoa, hey, Frank," Ray says, coming out from the bunks and rubbing his eyes. "You've got something on your shoulder, man."

"Here," Frank says, handing Katie over, tugging at Ray's arms until he's supporting her correctly. "You take her, I'm going back to bed."

He leaves his shirt in Gerard's bunk; it seems fair.

*

Frank stays in his bunk for most of the rest of the day, listening to music or reading his way through Gerard's box of Absolutely Essential comics. Cheryl comes by again, and she and Brian walk back to the studio to talk; Brian taps against the frame of Frank's bunk, but doesn't say anything.

Eventually, they hit the venue, and Frank rolls out of bed and wanders into the lounge. Gerard's handing Katie to Brian, again, reminding him of all the things Gerard's learned over the past two days as though he's known them forever, as though Brian probably isn't better suited to take care of Katie than any of them. Brian rolls his eyes at Frank, but Frank looks away; he needs some fucking coffee before the show.

As a general rule, Frank doesn't have anything against Iowa—it's not his favorite place, but it's not the worst of all possible places, either. And the show's amazing, like Iowa's making up for something, the crowd electric and Gerard strutting across the stage, capturing their responses with the tilt of his hips, the angle of his head. They all catch the same energy, just like always—Ray's insane, a blur of hair and fingers, and Bob's his own little vortex of rhythm and awesome. Mikey's quiet—but Mikey's always quiet, and his playing is right on.

Frank throws himself into it, stretching, jumping off of anything that will hold his weight, pressing up against Gerard and Mikey and Gerard and Ray and Gerard and Gerard, playing on his knees and his back and in midair, letting it all wash over and through him, screaming and brilliant and exactly the way it should always, always be. Gerard presses back, too, and his face is sweaty and perfect against Frank's neck, his voice buzzing on Frank's skin.

It takes Frank a while to come down, after, and he winds up sitting on the steps of the bus, smoking and staring at the sky. They're pretty close to a city—he doesn't remember where, and it's not like he knows the names of cities in Iowa anyways—and the sky off to his left glows orange, but even with the venue lights, he can see the stars if he tips his head straight back.

The stars, and also Gerard, leaning in the doorway and twitching a cigarette between his fingers. Frank offers him a light, but he shakes his head.

"I'm probably going to have to quit," he says, "I mean, because of Katie." He sits down on the top step, his knees just brushing against Frank's shoulderblades.

"Weird," Frank says, leaning back a little. They've both been trying to quit for a while, here and there, going weeks, sometimes months jittery and clean before giving up, sliding back. It's comforting, at this point, the rise and fall, the rhythm of it, the back and forth. Without it—"weird," he says again, and watches the smoke curl up and dissipate in the air.

"Yeah," Gerard says. Frank glances over his shoulder, tipping his head back to rest against Gerard's knees. Gerard's staring up at the stars, too. "Worth it, though," he says, tucking the unlit cigarette into his pocket.

They sit like that for a while, silent and easy, and then Gerard stands up to go inside, brushing his hands over Frank's hair as he goes.

Frank stays out for a while, staring at the sky, then sighs and stubs out his half-smoked cigarette on the steps. Maybe he'll try quitting again, sometime soon—he and Gerard always last longer when they can back each other up.


	2. Chapter 2

Frank wakes up sometime around four, blinking up at the darkness and trying to figure out why he's even conscious. There's nothing, though: just the road, the bus, the quiet sounds of people breathing around him. Frank shrugs and rolls over, smacking his pillow to get comfortable again. Probably he's slept too much, recently—that's usually more Gerard's problem, but it's the only thing that makes sense—

—the only thing, that is, until he hears Katie crying.

She's not that loud, really; not nearly as loud as he'd have expected. For a second, he thinks about ignoring her. She's not _his_ kid, after all. She'll probably go back to sleep soon enough, and it's not loud enough to wake anybody else up—but then he hears _Gerard_ , rolling over and shoving his curtain back, sitting up and cracking his head against the bunk above his because he never remembers that it's there, when he's tired.

"Hey, no," Frank says, sliding out of his own bunk and crossing the aisle. "Gee, no, come on."

Gerard blinks at him, feet dangling over the edge of the bunk. "Frank?" he says, frowning. "Frank, what's going on?" He leans into Frank, sleepy and heavy and uncoordinated, blinking slowly in the dark. Frank pushes on his shoulders, trying to get him back into his bunk, but then Katie starts up again, a little louder this time, and Gerard remembers, starts to try to climb down, awkward and still more than half asleep.

"Gee," Frank says, "Gerard." Gerard stares at him, blinking, and Frank sighs. "Go the fuck back to sleep, you dumbass," Frank says. "I'll take care of it."

"But Katie," Gerard says, "Frank, she's _crying_." Screaming her little head off, now, actually, and she's going to wake up Bob soon. Frank sighs, pushing on Gerard's shoulder until he settles back in his bunk.

"I'll take care of it," he says. "Go back to bed, fucker." Gee keeps staring, though, frowning a little.

"Frank," he says, "why—"

"Because you were up all night last night, and most of the night before, and I don't want you to pass out onstage, okay?" Gerard doesn't seem satisfied, but Katie's really getting into it, and Bob's starting to move around in that just-waking-up-gonna-kill-you-all way he has; Frank pulls Gerard's curtains and goes into the lounge, shutting the door behind him.

Katie just screams louder when he picks her up, flailing her tiny fists around. She doesn't want food, and her diaper is clean; Frank's pretty sure she just wants to yell. So, fine: Frank's played in a lot of shitty punk bands, and listened to even more. She can scream as loud as she wants; he's heard worse.

"And anyway," he says to her, bouncing her a little, his hand steady on the back of her head, "your lungs are pretty small. I mean, I won't say I'm not impressed by the effort," because, seriously, for somebody as small as she is she sure can scream, "but you're working at a disadvantage here, kiddo." She wails, and he pats her on the back. "I'd show you, but then we'd wake Bob up, and then he'd kill us all—well, maybe not you, because you're pretty cute, but definitely me." A tiny flailing hand catches him on the ear, little fingers hooking in, and Frank winces. "Yeah, thanks, that's just great, how about not?" It's tough to get her to let go of his ear without dropping her, but he manages it, and goes back to walking across the lounge, back and forth, patting her back and ignoring her screaming.

After a while, he starts singing to her. Nothing modern—time enough for that when she's old enough to appreciate it. He sings her lullabies, kids' songs, the stuff his mom sang to him when he was small and sick and scared. Half of the time, he can't remember the lyrics, and winds up humming his way through. Katie doesn't seem to mind, though, and gradually she gets quieter, less violent, until she's hiccupping softly on his shoulder, her face wet against his neck.

"And if that mockingbird won't sing," he continues, "papa's gonna buy you a diamond ring. And if that diamond ring don't sparkle, papa's gonna buy you some...magic markers. And if those magic markers don't color, papa's gonna buy you—" she finally stops crying, and Frank sighs. "Something insane, I'm sure." He thinks, for a second, of taking her back to Gerard—but that'd just wake Gee up, and then the whole point of the exercise would be lost. Plus, Gerard would probably get her excited again, cooing over her.

The carseat will be fine. Frank goes to put her down, though, and she grabs onto his t-shirt. She's quiet, and otherwise peaceful, but she won't let go, and finally he gives up.

"Whatever, fine," he says. "Let's see what's on TV." Pretty much nothing, at this point: at 5 am, it's all infomercials and reruns. "What do you think, kid?" he asks her, stretching out on the couch. "Top model reruns or Law and Order reruns?" She shifts against him and farts, and Frank nods. "Top model it is, then." Tyra's breasts are scarier than ever, and Frank wonders briefly if he should be showing this stuff to an infant. "But, I mean," he tells her, "you're going to see it at _some_ point, right?" Anyway, he's not entirely sure her eyes can focus that far away.

He starts to explain the principle of the show to her, but she falls asleep before they're past the opening credits, her hand wrapped around his thumb. And like this—with her asleep on his chest, warm and soft and sweet, drooling and holding onto him—like this, it's okay. She's still not his, but for a little while he can pretend that she is, pretend that he's anything more than a bystander.

Onscreen, a camera flashes, and Frank closes his eyes.

*

"Guys, have you seen Frank any—oh," Ray says, "I guess you have."

Frank blinks his eyes open. He's on the couch, the TV flickering on mute in front of him. For a minute, he can't remember how he got there, but then Katie smacks him in the face with a tiny hand, and it all comes back: waking up in the middle of the night, hearing the kid, going on a mission of mercy to keep Gerard from working himself into a nervous collapse. Walking around the bus a million times. Sitting down on the couch, channel surfing. Top model.

"You fell asleep on the couch," Mikey says. He's only smiling a little, but it's like a smirk coming from him, and he's got his sidekick out. Frank blinks.

"How many people have pictures so far?" he asks. Gerard looks like he's going to tough it out, but Mikey just shrugs.

"Our moms, mostly," he says. "And Alicia. She says hey."

"By which he means, _awwwwwww!!!!_ " Gerard reports back, leaning over Mikey's shoulder to peek. He's not really tall enough to; he has to stand on his toes to reach. Frank laughs, and the motion is enough to wake Katie up all the way; she starts making noise, and Gerard swoops over to pick her up and feed her, cooing to her and rubbing noses all the way. On the one hand, it's obnoxious as all fuck—on the other hand, Gerard's bouncing around like an insane squirrel instead of doing the Zombie Shuffle; Frank's going to count that as a win.

"Look," Gerard says, "Look, Katie, you're an astronaut!" He flies her down the hallway to the kitchen, making all of the appropriate spaceship noises, and turnabout has always been fair play. Frank grabs Mikey's sidekick and takes off after them, snapping pictures of Gerard and Katie being astronauts, Gerard wrestling with the jars of baby food, Gerard trying and failing to persuade Katie that bananas are awesome by means of various transportation analogies, Gerard with bananas in his hair, Gerard eating bananas, as an example, Gerard spitting "disgusting mockery of bananadom" into the sink, Katie giggling like a fiend.

"You have no idea what's going on, do you?" Frank says, leaning in to bop her nose. "You just think we're a bunch of fucking crazy people."

"In her defense, she's probably right," Gerard says, toweling his hair dry. "Also, fifty cents."

Frank rolls his eyes. "Come on, Gerard," he says. "She's four months old, and I know you think she's the smartest baby in the entire fucking world, but I'm pretty sure she doesn't know what the fuck we're saying. Ow!" Katie has both her hands in his hair and is yanking again, tugging him down to her level. "Ow, fuck, fucking—shit, come on, Gee, stop being an asshole and fucking help me!"

"I think she understands more than you give her credit for, Frank," Gerard says. "Also, it's four dollars now." He's pulling Katie's hands away, though, smeared in gross fake-banana shit.

Frank shoves a five in the jar. "Consider it an advance," he says. "Get out of the way, I'm going to go wash my fucking hair." No showers on the bus, of course, so he's stuck shoving his head under the sink and doing what he can, scrubbing and rinsing. Kid's got tiny fucking hands, but the banana crap is still all over Frank's hair; he's going to be smelling it all day.

"Here," Gerard says, behind him, "you missed a spot, let me—" he holds the back of Frank's neck with one hand and uses the other to work the baby food out of Frank's hair. "This stuff is really sticky," he says. "I don't know if we should really be letting Katie eat it, you know? It seems like it'd be dangerous."

"Making her eat it, you mean," Frank says. "Also, it tastes like shit."

"Mmm." Gerard's pressed up behind Frank, leaning against him while he washes his hair. It's weirdly intimate, somehow—the bus has stopped, and it's like it's just the two of them, Gerard's hands in Frank's hair, the sound of the water running and Katie making a mess of her breakfast, the sound of the door opening—

"—Hi, Cheryl," Gerard says. His hands stop moving, but he doesn't step away, which means Frank can't stand up; on the other hand, if Cheryl's there, he's not sure he wants to. His face feels red, probably from being bent over the sink. "Frank, um," Gerard continues. "Katie doesn't like bananas." He shrugs.

Cheryl laughs. "Fair enough," she says. "I just have a little more information for you all, when you're ready." Gerard shuts off the water and stands up, leaving Frank with his hair dripping into the sink; he grabs the towel from the counter and wraps it around his head like a turban, figuring that his morning can't really get any more ridiculous.

Everyone else is already settled in the other room, when he gets in: Gerard and Mikey on opposite ends of the couch, Bob propped up over his coffee, Ray in a chair looking intent, Brian and Cheryl at the table. Frank thinks about it, then drops to the floor next to Katie's car seat and gives her his fingers to play with; she sticks them in her mouth, which is probably not the best plan ever, but is also kind of stupidly cute.

"Right, well," Cheryl says. "The first thing is that I've been cleared to act as your official caseworker."

"...because you weren't already?" Ray says finally.

Cheryl shuffles her papers. "Not technically, no. We don't deal with a lot of cases crossing state lines, and even fewer that can hit a dozen major cities in two weeks. There was some uncertainty over how your case should be handled, but, well." She shrugs. "I won." Her grin is sharp and a little dangerous, and Frank is suddenly very glad that she's on their side.

"Well, great," Gerard says. "I mean, seriously, thank you." He taps his foot, jostling Frank's leg. "But, um. I'm guessing you didn't come out here just to tell us that?"

"No," Cheryl says. "That's the easy part, so pay attention."

*

"So, basically," Bob says, "you're saying that there are two parts to this thing."

"Right." Cheryl nods, and Bob continues.

"On the one hand, we're trying to get Gerard certified as a fit parent—"

"—which means that we're really trying to get us _all_ certified as fit parents," Ray adds, "because it's not like what we do isn't going to affect Katie."

"Exactly."

"But at the same time, on the off chance that I'm _not_ fit to parent," Gerard rolls his eyes, "we're also trying to track down Katie's mother, to see what's going on with her."

"Basically, yes. We want to know why she gave the child up, if there are any other issues to be concerned about—and, ultimately, whether she would make a fit guardian should you prove to be—"

"A crazy person," Frank says, because it's not like they aren't all thinking it. Cheryl rolls her eyes, but nods.

"Pretty much." They sit for a few seconds, thinking, and then Mikey lifts his head up from his sidekick, frowning.

"So, like, you're going to ride with us for a while? Because, I mean." He looks around at the lounge and shrugs. "We're kind of gross." Gerard makes an arguing face, but Mikey rolls his eyes. "Dude, don't even start, you know it's true."

Cheryl shrugs. "I mean, ordinarily it'd be a pretty cursory inspection—we want to give custody to the birth father, and we want to do it as soon as possible, for the sake of the child." Gerard's vibrating in his seat, practically, he's so excited; Frank leans back against his legs until he stops moving around. "Unless we turn up any really obvious red flags—but, I mean, this isn't an ordinary situation, here." She shuffles her papers again, closes the folder, folds her hands. "I don't know, really," she says. "We'll have to figure it out as we go along."

"So what's first?" Ray's frowning. "Do you, like. Do you need to interview us?"

"At some point, yes. Right now, though," Cheryl stands up, "I'm most interested in seeing what kind of accommodations you have set up for Katie."

"Okay," Gerard says, "yeah, sure."

What follows is officially the weirdest tour in the history of MCR. Cheryl's not interested in the instruments or the bunks or any of the normal stuff; she's checking the mini-fridge and the ventilation and the corners of the furniture. They follow her around like nervous ducklings, peeking around her and trying to figure out what she's looking at, what she's seeing.

"You're going to have to stop smoking on the bus," she says, standing up. "Like, seriously, that's a red flag the size of Nebraska."

Gerard coughs. "I'm actually trying to quit entirely," he says, fidgeting with the sleeves of his sweatshirt.

"That's also good," Cheryl says, sounding like she's heard that one before. "Still, at the very least no more smoking on the bus." She's not mean about it, just resigned and practical; it makes Frank think about what her life must be like, helping kids without families.

That's not her biggest criticism, though. "It looks good for right now," she says, "but she's not going to stay in the carseat forever, and you're going to need to figure out how you're going to take care of her once she's crawling around." She smiles a little. "I'd suggest that you start by finding a new hiding place for the porn." Ray blushes, but she ignores him. "I've got to head out now," she says. "But I'll be back in a few days to check Katie over in more detail." She'd fallen asleep sometime during the tour, so Cheryl had just checked her skin, her hands, looked at the clothes they'd bought her and pronounced them acceptable, if "a little bit weird."

"Thank you," Gerard says, stepping forward and taking her hand. "Really, I mean—thank you so much, seriously."

Cheryl smiles at Gerard, then bites her lip. "We also," she says, "need to talk about the exact custody arrangements." She shuffles her papers together, looking at them one by one. "I mean, I take it that you're all planning to raise her together?" Frank nods, glancing around; the others are nodding too, and Gerard looks a little bit like he's about to cry, neither of which are any surprise. "Right, well," she says. "That's wonderful, and I do want to applaud you all for this—but our system's set up for something a little more, um." She takes a breath. "A little more binary, I guess."

Gerard looks like he's been kicked in the nuts, without the benefit of an adrenaline buzz to carry him through it. "You need a second parent," he says.

Cheryl nods. "I mean, practically speaking you're going to be evaluated as a unit—in a situation like this, if any one of you were unfit to parent, that would make the situation dangerous enough that we wouldn't pass it." She clears her throat. "But, for the sake of the paperwork, I'm going to need a second name."

Frank closes his eyes. Gerard's going to pick Mikey—or, well, maybe not Mikey, because Mikey's got Alicia and that might make things weird, later on. Maybe Gerard will pick Ray, who's a fucking genius, or Bob, who's preternaturally chill. Maybe he'll pick Schechter; Shechter would be a good dad. Or maybe he'll tell Cheryl to fuck off, give her that whole lecture on binary and gender roles and non-traditional families and—

"Frank," Gerard says, "Frank." Frank opens his eyes and stares at him, and Gerard shrugs, turning a little red. "I mean, you're really good with her, you know? Like, this morning and everything." He glances away, staring at something on the wall. "I mean, unless you don't want to or—"

"I'll do it," Frank says, swallowing hard. "I mean, somebody has to keep you two out of trouble." Gerard doesn't need the help, but Frank can hang around and burp the baby until Gerard figures that out.

"I—thanks," Gerard says, glancing at Cheryl and then away. "Thanks, Frankie."

Cheryl nods, writing it down, then looks back up. "There's also the question of paternity testing," she says. "This is going to be a lot of work for you all—it would make sense for you to want to make sure." There's a long, silent moment where Gerard stares down at Katie and the rest of them stare at Gerard. "You don't have to decide today," Cheryl says. "Talk it over, tell me tomorrow—this is a big decision to be making." She grabs her papers from the table and Brian walks her out, presumably back to wherever she's riding.

Gerard stands in the middle of the room, shoulders down, twitching quietly.

"If you guys," he says, rubbing his eyes with the back of his hand. "I mean, fuck. I don't want to—"

"Shut the fuck up, Gerard," Ray says, stepping up behind him and wrapping his arm around Gerard's shoulders.

"Seriously, man," Bob says, coming around on Gerard's other side. "Do you honestly think we're that kind of assholes?"

Mikey doesn't say anything, just walks up to the mass of bodies and hugs them all hard. Frank steps around them, stands face-to-face with Gerard, leans forward until their foreheads are touching.

"Frank," Gerard says, lost and exhausted. "Frank, fuck. I—I don't want to ask this of you, especially when—"

"You're not asking, asshole," Frank says. "I'm telling you." He can _do_ this, can help Gerard figure out how to be a dad.

Gerard, of course, is completely unable to take a good thing as a given. "But, I mean," he says. "You guys know that if they check—the paternity test's going to say it's some guy in Duluth or whatever." He sounds choked up and furious, and Frank can't blame him. Anybody who'd abandon a mom with a kid is automatically a jackass, in his book, and when that kid's Katie—well.

Frank rolls his eyes. "No shit, Gerard." The test's not going to show that Gerard stayed up all night with a screaming kid, or that he let her smear baby food all over him, or that his eyes fucking light up whenever she's anywhere nearby. It's not going to show how much Gerard fucking loves her, even just knowing her for a few days—which sucks, really, because that's the important thing, here.

"Yeah, well," he says, shrugging. "What's a little babynapping between friends?"

Gerard makes a choked noise. "You guys are—seriously, motherfuckers, I don't even fucking know—"

"This is touching and all," Brian says, "but Katie is having a diaper situation, and I am not going to be the one to deal with it."

"Brian," Gerard says. He looks up, but doesn't shove them away, so they stay there, wrapped up in each other. "Schechter, are you—is this okay?"

Frank turns around just in time to see the face Brian makes, half oh-god-I-love-you-all-so-much and half oh-god-how-did-I-wind-up-with-you-idiots. "You say that as though this were the weirdest thing you guys have put me through," he says, and Gerard makes another ridiculous noise and pulls himself free of the group hug, walking over to squish his face against Schechter's neck and give him a bear hug. Brian, for his part, looks put-upon, but also touched. "That's great, Gerard," he says, "really, awesome. Now stop snotting on my shirt and go deal with your daughter's diaper."

Gerard pulls away, looks at them all, flaps his hands once or twice, and then—at another wail from Katie—grabs the car seat and the diaper bag and disappears into the kitchen.

"I'd better go with him," Frank says, disentangling himself from the remains of the group hug. "He still doesn't know how to work a fucking diaper."

"Oh, God," Brian says, but Frank's already halfway down the hallway.

*

The first package is there at the venue when they roll into St Louis that afternoon. KATHERINE ELIZABETH, it says C/O MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE. It's postmarked New Jersey, and it's fucking heavy.

"Five dollars says it's from Mrs. Way," Bob says, while Frank wrestles with the packing tape.

"No bet," Mikey says, leaning over Frank's shoulder. "Of course it's from Mom." They get the box open, and the first thing Frank sees is a teddy bear almost Katie's size, dressed in black with a cape and tiny fabric fangs. Mikey grabs it out of the box before Frank can really get a look at it, and lobs it across the room to Ray, who catches it and hands it to Gerard.

"Hey, awesome!" he says, and holds it up to show to Katie. "Look, Katie, it's a vampire bear!" He waves it in her face and she bats at it, grabbing clumsily until Gerard holds it close enough that she can stuff it in her mouth. Frank watches them and laughs; behind him, he hears the click-whirr of Ray's camera going off.

In addition to the vampire bear, the box contains:

\- a NO SMOKING sign,  
\- a red fleece blanket, ridiculously soft and warm,  
\- approximately ten million pairs of tiny socks,  
\- a bunch of tiny squishy rubber things,  
\- a hot pink sweatshirt,  
\- a baby backpack, and  
\- several bags of coffee beans.

There's also a letter, which Mikey reads.

"The rubber things are for her teeth," he says.

Ray picks one up and tosses it from hand to hand, frowning. "Does she even _have_ teeth?" Gerard checks, holding Katie's mouth open and looking inside; fortunately, she finds the whole thing hilarious.

"Mom says not yet," Mikey says, reading further, "but that we'll know when we need them." Ray nods, flipping the pacifier over his fingers, then shrugs and bites it experimentally. Frank shakes his head, because, seriously. His life, some days. "She also says that the sweatshirt is so that the poor kid will have some colors to wear," Mikey adds, "which is probably fair."

"Hey!" Gerard looks up, glaring at them. "We totally got clothes in colors."

"Black's not a color, Gee," Mikey says, but Gerard just rolls his eyes and goes back to telling Katie that she's, "the best little skeleton ever, kid, just you wait and see."

Frank unloads the rest of the stuff onto the floor and tosses the empty box behind the couch. Bob watches it sail over his head, then turns to Frank, thoughtful.

"Where are we going to put all this stuff, guys?" he asks, which is—which is a really good question, actually. They all take a moment to think about it. Finally, Ray stands up, grabbing the NO SMOKING sign off the top of the pile and hanging it over the entrance to the bunks.

"We've already got the studio bus," he says. "Why don't we make this the baby bus?" And just like that, that's how it works.

*

The next day, they're playing Chicago. It's a good day—crisp, clear fall weather, endless blue sky and white fluffy clouds. They wrap Katie up in sweaters and stuff her into the baby carrier, and then find someone to loan them a car and trek out to Bob's mom's house for lunch. She feeds them casserole and gives Gerard as much coffee as he wants, and coos endlessly over Katie.

"I have to say," she says, when Frank gets up to refill the coffee, "I had my doubts when I heard about this, but you boys seem to be doing all right." Gerard beams so much it's ridiculous, but Frank can't really blame him. He's smiling pretty hard, too.

Bob's mom always gives them food to take with them, but this time she gives them a box to go with the Tupperware.

"My niece's youngest is too big for it, now," she says, "and it's sturdy enough that I thought it might do for you boys. Amelia, dear," she says, and Bob nods.

"Thanks, Mrs. Bryar," Gerard says, turning on the earnest; she starts to wave him off, but winds up taking Katie again, rubbing noses with her and making silly baby-talk noises. Bob looks a little embarrassed, but otherwise resigned, which is a pretty common look for him.

Getting the crib into the car is easy, getting it onto the bus and into the back bedroom is a little more challenging. Getting it set up, though, is completely fucking impossible, and Frank winds up sprawled on the bed with Gerard, playing with Katie's fingers while Ray and Mikey argue over which parts go where and Bob ransacks the bus, looking for a screwdriver.

"Motherfuck," Bob says, coming back in. "How is it that nobody we know has anything remotely useful?"

"I bet your _mom_ has a screwdriver," Frank says, and Bob flips him off.

"Should you really be making your mom jokes in front of a three-month old? Also, fuck you."

"What, no," Frank says, trying not to laugh, "I'm just saying, your mom's a capable lady! I bet she's got a screwdriver!" He kicks Gerard's ankle, hoping for some support, but Gerard shakes his head.

"Sorry, Frank," he says. "I'm going to have to side with Bob, here." He glances at Bob. "Speaking of which, fifty cents."

Frank looks at Bob, who nods. "Here, hold her," Frank says, picking up Katie and handing her to Ray. Gerard doesn't realize what they're doing until it's too late to run away, by which point Bob and Frank are holding him down and tickling him while he shouts and swears.

"Who owes money _now_ , motherfucker?" Bob asks, right before they fall off the bed.

"Ow," Gerard says into the carpet, and then, "oh, hey, is that a screwdriver back there?"

It is, in fact, a screwdriver under the bed—Frank doesn't know why, and doesn't want to—and with that settled, the crib is set up in no time flat. Then Katie wants something to eat, and then they have to change her, and then it's time for soundcheck. During the openers, Gerard disappears for a while and comes back with Katie, wrapped in a blanket and wearing enormous industrial-strength headphones, looking around wide-eyed and uncertain.

"She woke up again," Gerard says, leaning close to talk over the sound of Reggie and the Full Effect. "Brian found these—they're what they use at, like, airports and shit, for people who work with jet engines." They seem to be working: Katie watches Reggie's whole set from sidestage without making a peep, and even falls asleep at the beginning of Alkaline Trio. Frank points it out to Gerard, who smiles and gestures toward the green room.

"I wanted her to see it," he says, when they can hear each other a little better. "I mean, I know she's not going to remember any of it, but I wanted to expose her to it, at least, you know?" Frank nods, and sits in the corner with Katie while Gerard warms up. He slips off the headphones halfway through. She doesn't wake up, but that's okay—he wants to expose her to some things, too, and Gerard's warm-up singing is just the first one.

The show is great—Chicago shows usually are—and they're all laughing and happy on the way out to the bus afterwards, teasing and joking. It's not really a surprise when Pete Wentz is there, leaning up against the side of the bus and messing around with his sidekick; when things happen in Chicago, Pete is usually somewhere around.

They invite him in, as a courtesy, and because if they don't invite him, he'll probably just come in anyways. Brian's at the table, working on his laptop and pushing Katie's carseat back and forth with his foot; Frank doesn't think anything of it until he walks into Pete, who's standing and staring.

"Dude," he says. "Dude, you guys have a baby, what the fuck."

"Swear jar," Gerard says, stepping around Pete to pick Katie up. "Thanks for watching her, Brian."

Pete turns to watch as Gerard settles on the couch, looking completely thrilled. "You guys have a swear jar?" he asks, sounding delighted. "Dude, that's badass—how much do I owe?"

"Fifty cents a word," Frank says, "so, a dollar." Pete stuffs one into the jar, then settles onto the floor, staring at Katie from about ten inches away. She starts to fuss, a little, which could be because of Pete, but then again might not be. "Brian, did you feed her?"

Brian shakes his head. "I tried to, before you guys went on, but she didn't seem hungry." Frank raises his eyebrows at Gerard, who nods.

"Probably a good idea, yeah," Gerard says, and Frank goes into the kitchen to find something new for Katie to rub in his hair. When he comes back out, Gerard's explaining the situation to Pete.

"So, like, we're totally fucking keeping her," Gerard says, "but first we have to go through all the child protection bullshit, get certified and everything. Ooh, broccoli," he says, when Frank hands him the jar.

"Swear jar, motherfucker," Frank tells him. "Hey, Pete, want to feed her?" No reason he should be the only one with vegetables in his hair.

*

They're doing two shows in Chicago, so they crash in a hotel. Smuggling the crib in is kind of tricky—they have to take it in stages, with Ray standing watch and Bob distracting the desk clerk. Then, of course, they have to set it back up again, and Frank gets smacked in the face with one of the bars.

"Crap," Gerard says, "Fuck, Frank, you okay?"

"Hold that steady, motherfucker," Frank says. "I'll show you okay." Gerard giggles, but he holds the fucking bars steady, and they get the crib set back up with only minimal comments from the peanut gallery.

"I gave you an eight, but your daughter was a bit more generous," Ray says, handing her over. "Also, I think you want to change her." He's edging towards the door as he says it; Frank flips him off, but he's already long gone.

"Should you really be giving him the finger?" Gerard says, setting the diaper bag on the bed and pulling stuff out of it. "I mean, like, in front of her?"

"Her eyes can't focus that far away yet," Frank says. "Here, get the wipes, I'll deal with her clothes."

They're still not very good at this diaper-changing business, and the whole right-side bed smells when they're done.

"Whatever," Frank says, when Gerard starts to make apologetic faces about stealing Frank's bed. "It's not like you're that bad to sleep with." He takes a shower and then passes out, face down, listening to Gerard explain Star Wars to Katie.

He wakes up in the middle night to Katie crying and Gerard, tangled in the blankets, trying to sit up and mostly just punching Frank in the ribs. Frank shoves him gently back down onto the bed and goes over to the crib, scooping Katie up in his arms and walking around the room with her, bouncing her carefully in his arms while she cries herself out. The second Frank sets her back down, though, she wakes up and starts whimpering again.

It's late, and Frank's a sucker; he picks her back up and takes her with him to the bed. Gerard's been quiet all this time, but his eyes flicker open when Frank lies down, Katie stretched out between the two of them.

"Hey," he says, reaching out to brush his finger down the side of her face. "Hey, there." She blinks, suddenly quiet, and turns her head towards him, wobbly and awkward. Frank watches the two of them for a long while, until Gerard takes a deep breath and starts singing, soft and scratchy and still half-asleep. "Somewhere over the rainbow..."

Frank closes his eyes, then, but stays awake for a long time, just listening.

The next morning, he wakes up with Gerard's hand on his hip and Katie squirming between them, stretching and yawning. He loses a few minutes like that, watching her tiny, scrunched-up face, and only looks up when Gerard squeezes his hip.

"Hey," Gerard says, smiling. His face is creased from the pillowcase, and his hair looks like it's massing for attack, and he smiles down at Katie like she's the most amazing thing he's ever seen.

"Hey," Frank says, leaning in a little, and then Gerard's phone buzzes.

Gerard rolls his eyes, squeezes Frank's hip again, and rolls away to answer it. Frank sits up a little, making sure that Katie can't roll away from him. "Hey, Cheryl," Gerard says. "Nah, just waking up." He listens for a bit, sitting on the edge of the bed and facing the window; Frank tickles the soles of Katie's feet. "Yeah, that sounds good—give us a call when you get here, and we'll send somebody down to get you. Yeah. Yeah, sure thing. Bye." He flips the phone closed and turns around, giving Katie a finger to play with.

"Cheryl?"

"Yeah," Gerard says. "She's got a doctor with her—they want to check on Katie, make sure she's okay and everything."

"Oh," Frank says, "okay." Gerard looks a little freaked, which is ridiculous: Katie's perfectly healthy, and it's not like they're going to draw blood from somebody who's not even big enough to sit up on her own. "Come on, then," Frank says, sitting up and lifting Katie into his arms, "let's make ourselves presentable."

The appointment goes fine, despite Gerard's nervousness. The doctor—a middle-aged woman named Marva—checks Katie over carefully, then fixes Gerard with a beady-eyed stare and asks him a series of questions about what they've been feeding her, how often she's been eating, how many times a day they have to change her diaper, how well she's been sleeping. She and Cheryl have a quiet conversation on the other side of the room, which is admittedly a little nervous-making, but at the end of it, Cheryl comes back over to them and smiles.

"Well, I'm happy to say that you've got a perfectly healthy three-month old girl," she says, and Gerard lets go of his death grip on Frank's hand.

"She's going to start teething soon," Marva adds, packing up her stethoscope. "You'll want to be ready for that."

"My mom sent us some stuff," Gerard says, and she nods approvingly.

"You'll want to find her a pediatrician as soon as you can," she says. "Ideally, somebody who doesn't mind being called out across the country if she gets sick while you're on tour." Frank nods; his mom told him the same thing. "Good luck," she tells them, standing at the doorway. "You're going to need it."

As soon as she's gone, Gerard turns to Cheryl. "That's good, right?" he asks, holding Katie close. "I mean, if she's healthy—"

"It's a very good sign," she says, smiling at them. "We'll probably have another checkup in a few weeks—I think Brian said something about Cincinnati?" Frank nods.

"What about the other stuff?" Gerard asks. "With her mom, I mean."

Cheryl sighs. "We've tracked down the hospital where her birth certificate was signed, but she checked in under a fake ID, and the nurses I've talked to say she wasn't a regular patient." She shrugs. "I'm going out there in a few days to try to dig up some more information, but it doesn't look likely."

"Oh," Gerard says. "That makes sense." He sounds subdued, and Frank can't blame him. On the one hand, it's awesome—if they can't find the mother, they're one step closer to getting to keep Katie forever. On the other hand, he can't help thinking of some girl, some fan of theirs, pregnant and scared and giving her baby up to a complete stranger. He and Gerard sit together for a while after Cheryl leaves, holding Katie between them and not saying anything.

*

"Hey, guys," Mikey says, when Frank answers the door. "Pete's got a car, and Bob and Ray are busy sleeping. Want to come downtown with us?" Frank looks at Gerard, who shrugs.

"Sure, yeah," Frank says. "Meet you in the lobby?"

Strapping the carseat into Pete's backseat is kind of ridiculously complicated. "In our defense," Gerard points out haughtily, "we haven't actually had to do this yet, so far."

"Yeah, sure," Pete says, wiping tears from his eyes. "Need a hand there, Frank?"

"Fuck you," Frank says, having finally gotten the damn thing situated. "Gee, give her here, I'll strap her in."

Pete, for all that he's a total jackass most of the time, is a surprisingly good tour guide. He points out parts of the city as they drive downtown, helping Frank flesh out his mental map of Chicago, which is still mostly a patchwork quilt of venues he's played, bars he's been to, and hotels he's crashed at, interspersed with the odd landmark and the constant sweep of the lake, cool and gray. They stay downtown, mostly, where the buildings are tall and pointy and everybody is busy enough not to notice four semi-famous rockstars and a baby.

"I'd take you guys up north," he says, while they're walking back and forth under the enormous silver sculpture in the park. "It's generally a cooler neighborhood, I mean—but I figured that you really didn't want to be recognized, all things considered." He nods at Katie, strapped securely onto Gerard's chest and watching intently as he explains reflection to her.

"Thanks," Frank says. "Probably a good plan." This is good, anyway. It's maybe not what he thought he wanted, a year ago—a wife, a family, kids of his own—but it's good.

A few days later, there's a package waiting for them at the venue in Baton Rouge, postmarked from Chicago. It contains:

\- three Katie-sized animal costumes (rabbit, cat, and giraffe),  
\- a mess of strings and plastic that turns out to be a mobile, musical notes dangling delicately and spinning in the nonexistent breeze,  
\- the world's tiniest xylophone, and  
\- a note.

"Dear proud parents," Mikey reads, "blah blah blah cutest kid in the world can only be made cuter with animal costumes. Send me pictures, blah blah blah—" Mikey looks up. "He promises not to put them online anywhere, Gee," he says, but Frank has his doubts. "PS the xylophone is from Patrick." Mikey frowns. "He says that Bob will know why."

They all turn and stare; Bob frowns, then starts laughing. "I used to make fun of him," he says. "Like, the dude has every musical instrument in the universe, and I used to give him shit about what he was going to use them for. He said that the xylophone was for posterity." Bob shakes his head, smiling. "I guess Katie counts."

They take the pictures; Frank keeps an eye on the gossip blogs for the next few days, but nothing pops up. Frank sits with Katie sometimes, watching the mobile spin; it's pretty neat. Sometimes Gerard joins them, resting his head on Frank's stomach and telling Katie stories, all dragons and unicorns and an intrepid princess, saving the day.

*

It's a travel day, so they're all sacked out in the lounge on the Baby Bus. Sometimes, when they're sick of each other's fucking faces, they'll split up, two on one bus and three on the other, spreading out so that they can have the nearest possible approximation of actual privacy. Since Katie, though, they're mostly sticking together, settling around and watching Katie burble and fart and sleep.

Today, she rolls over. It's kind of big deal.

"She's going to be the best-documented baby on the planet," Gerard complains, but he doesn't stop Mikey from taking yet another picture of Katie, exhausted from her adventures in rotation, asleep face-down on her red blanket.

"Not true," Ray says. "Pete Wentz could have kids." He makes a face, and Frank doesn't blame him; that's a weird thing to think about. Weirder than Gerard with a baby, even, somehow.

Mikey's sidekick buzzes, and he stares at it.

"You know, Mikey," Gerard says, "I know it's hard to believe, but I'm pretty sure that thing has uses other than photojournalism."

"Fuck you," Mikey says, "it's Mom. Hi, Ma," he says, pressing a button and flopping down on the couch. "What's up?" His eyes go wide—not much, but enough that Frank notices, enough that Gerard sits up, looking worried. "Yeah, no," Mikey says, "hang on, I'll tell him." He rests the sidekick against his shoulder and looks down at Katie, smiling a little. "Guys, she's four months old today."

"No way," Frank says, but as soon as he thinks about it, he realizes that it is.

"Her birthday's June 14th," Gerard says, resting his hand on her back. "She's a third of a year old today." He catches Frank's eye, and Frank smiles back, matching him grin for grin.

"You realize what this means," Frank says, kicking Gerard's ankle. "We have to throw her a party."

"Of course," Gerard says, nodding seriously. "It's not every day that you turn one third." He turns around, but Bob and Ray are already up.

"Where'd we leave the streamers?" Ray asks. "I know we had some left over from Vegas, where the fuck are they?"

Mikey puts Mrs. Way on speaker while they decorate, and she asks them for every little detail about Katie—what she's eating, what she's not eating, how long she's sleeping at night, what new faces she's made today.

"Well, now" she says, "Gerard was just the same, you know—didn't fall asleep before four AM for the first year we had him, I swear. I spent so much time in the armchair that it got a permanent assprint from me!" She laughs. "It was all for show, of course. The little faker just wanted the attention."

"Mom," Gerard says, holding up a roll of streamers while Frank stands on a chair to pin them up. They're almost out, but the bus is slowing down; they'll get something at the gas station. "Ma, you remember the part where she's not blood, right?"

Mama Way tsks dismissively. "Just because her biological father is some dipshit asswipe in Minnesota doesn't mean that she couldn't inherit your love of drama, dear," she says. "Some things are nurture, not nature, after all."

"Hi, guys!" Cheryl walks in through the door, then stops dead when they all stare at her, horrified. Mikey grabs the phone and flips it off of speaker, talking quietly to Mrs. Way. "Did I—am I interrupting something?" she says, looking confused.

"No," Frank says, when everybody else keeps staring. "No, I mean—we were just throwing a party," he says. "For Katie."

"She's four months old today," Gerard says, scooping her up from the blanket on the floor. "A whole third of a year old." Cheryl's face goes soft, and she steps forward.

"Can I?" she says, holding out her hands; Gerard looks like he wants to say no, but after a second he hands Katie over, settling her carefully in Cheryl's arms. "She's such a little sweetheart," Cheryl says, smiling down at Katie.

Gerard beams. "She rolled over this morning!" he says, like it's the biggest thing that's ever happened; Frank would mock him, but it was kind of awesome to watch.

"Well," Cheryl says, "don't let me interrupt the party." She hands Katie back, and Gerard hesitates.

"Wait," he says. "You had something to tell us?" Cheryl blinks, then nods.

"I did, yeah," she says. She's smiling, but she seems a little sad. "I just got back from Minneapolis—no luck with the mother, and at this point they're pretty sure she's not going to turn up." She bites her lip, staring at Gerard. "If you two still want to go ahead with this..."

"Yes," Gerard says, then turns to Frank. "I mean—"

"Yes," Frank says, looking at Cheryl. "Yes, we want to."

"Great," she says. "I hoped you'd say that." She walks back to her briefcase, dropped by the door. "In that case, I have some more paperwork for you guys."

The party is a little awkward, after that, with none of them saying what they're all thinking. If Cheryl had been ten seconds faster—if Gerard had been just a little louder—but now, instead of snatching Katie away, she's giving them papers to sign, saying that, yes, they will take care of Katie to the best of their ability, and yes, they have enough money to support her, and yes, they plan to enroll her in an appropriate school as soon as possible, and no, they don't plan to expose her drugs or alcohol or guns or violence. They each have to fill one out, and there's another form for the rest of the guys, to prove that they'll be good influences.

There's a little box marked RELATIONSHIP TO PARENT 1; Frank chews on the end of his pen and stares at it for a bit, then decides to leave it blank. When he glances over at Gerard's paper—it's not like cheating, not for something like this—he sees that Gerard has written _bandmate + friend_.

Frank leaves his blank.

Just as they're finishing up, Katie goes from grizzling quietly and drooling on Gerard's collar to crying a little. Frank stands up, pushing his stack of papers across the table towards Cheryl.

"I'll deal with it," he says, taking Katie carefully from Gerard. "Come on, Katie Way, let's go find you a birthday lunch."

Katie doesn't seem to have a preference, but sweet potatoes seem like a good bet. Frank digs a bowl out of the cupboard—one of the benefits of living mostly off of takeout, gas-station junk, and whatever they get at venues is that their own dishes mostly stay clean—and spoons some of the orange glop into it.

"Well," he tells Katie, "at least this'll be an interesting color when you smear it in my hair."

"We'll make Bob do it," Gerard says. "It'll blend better." There's not much space in the kitchen, and he's pressed against Frank's hip and side, making faces at Katie. "You got that, Kate?" he says. "Food in Bob's hair, not ours." Katie burbles, and Gerard kisses her on the forehead; his chin brushes against Frank's shoulder.

"She's definitely your daughter," Frank says. "Likes to be messy."

"I—yeah," Gerard says. "I guess she is." He sounds weird, and Frank turns to look at him, but by the time he's turned all the way around, Gerard's back to normal, pushing his nose up and crossing his eyes at Katie. "Hey, wait," he says when Frank grabs the bowl of sweet potatoes. "I think there's a candle in that drawer, hang on." He presses up against Frank, reaching past him to get at the junk drawer. His hair is in Frank's face, and he's holding onto Frank's hip to steady himself, and Frank can't _breathe_ , there's so little space in here.

"Careful," he says, unsteady, "Don't want to squish Katie." Gerard nods against his neck, shifting his weight so that he's pressed against Frank from shoulder to hip.

"Hah, motherfucker," Gerard says finally, pulling back a little. "Found it!" He brings the candle right up in front of Frank's face, waving it and grinning, and Frank smiles back. "Now, where—" Gerard looks around, and Frank holds up Katie's lunch. "Right, exactly," Gerard says. "Now, just hold it—no, here," he says, grabbing Frank's wrist and holding his hand still. "It's easier like this, see?" His hands are warm and a little sweaty, but his grip is smooth and steady. "There," Gerard says, stepping back. "It's not birthday cake, but it'll work."

"Also, she doesn't have teeth yet," Frank says. "Which might make cake difficult."

Gerard laughs. "Thanks, Frankie," he says. "Seriously, thanks."

"For holding the bowl?" Frank says, holding it up. "It's not that hard; I'm sure you could have managed somehow."

"Fuck you," Gerard says. "You know what I meant." He glances at Katie, who's gnawing halfheartedly on Frank's hair. "You want me to take her?"

"Nah, I'm good," Frank says. "Come on, party time."

Back in the lounge, everybody sings Happy Birthday to Katie, and Gerard helps her blow out the candle in her mush. Bob gets volunteered for baby-food duty, and does a decent job of it, although he still winds up with sweet potatoes in his beard.

"Hey, guys," Mikey says, when Bob goes into the kitchen to clean up. "Hey, let's get a picture."

"A family picture, yeah," Gerard says. "That's fucking awesome, Mikey." Brian rolls his eyes, but he's smiling, and Cheryl looks distinctly sniffly.

"Yeah, sure," Frank says, handing Katie back to Gerard. "Just let me—" Gerard is staring at him, though, frowning in confusion, still holding the half-empty bowl of baby food. "Family photo, Gee," he says. "That means you."

"It means you, too," Gerard says, "I mean, you signed the papers and everything." He glances over at Cheryl, sidelong and nervous, and Frank sighs and drops back down onto the couch. It's a little weird, taking a family photo with somebody else's kid, but he doesn't really want to argue it with Cheryl sitting right there.

"Say cheese," Mikey says, and Frank smiles.

Katie falls asleep not long after that, and they tuck her back into her car seat. Cheryl stays for a little while—checks over the arrangements on the bus again, talks scheduling and locations with Brian—and then goes back to her car the next time they stop.

"I'll see you in Detroit," she says. "Keep me posted." Frank stays outside for a while, leaning against the side of the gas station and smoking a cigarette until it's time for them to roll out again.

"Oh, fuck you," he says, when he sees Ray, Bob, and Mikey heading for the other bus. "What, you're going to leave the mess for us?" Inside, though, things are as clean as they ever are, although there's still some tinsel hanging around the doorway. Katie's out cold in her little basket, chewing on her fist in her sleep, and Gerard is standing in the middle of the room, staring at nothing and twitching.

"Frank," he says, "Frank, shit, what if she heard us?"

"She didn't hear us," Frank says, flopping down on the couch. "If she'd heard us, she would have freaked, and she didn't freak, which means she didn't hear us." Gerard turns, frowning and fidgeting with the sleeves of his shirt.

"But what if she did?" He sighs, then drops down on the couch next to Frank. "It could fuck everything up, you know?"

"But it didn't, and it won't," Frank says, grabbing Gerard's shoulder and tugging. "Calm down, it's fine." Gerard goes reluctantly, settling slowly until he's lying on the couch on his side, his head on Frank's shoulder. Frank wraps an arm around his shoulders and drums his fingers gently on the back of Gerard's neck, steady and soothing. "It's fine, Gerard," he says again. "Seriously, stop worrying, you're going to wake Katie up."

Gerard sighs, relaxing a little against Frank's shoulder. "Just—I know the system is there for a reason, right? And I don't want to be, like," he waves his hand, almost catching Frank in the nose, "asking for special treatment or some shit." He sighs again. "But I also don't want them to take her away."

"Which they're not going to," Frank says, "because you're going to be a great father, once you stop fucking panicking all the time." He closes his eyes and just breathes for a minute, holding Gerard close enough that they're breathing together.

"Frank," Gerard says finally, sounding calmer. "Frank—you want this, right? Katie, I mean." Frank opens his eyes, stares at the ceiling, tries not to move too much.

"Yeah," he says. "Of course. What would you do without me?"

Gerard rolls his eyes; Frank can feel it, the familiar motion of muscles pressed against his shoulder. "No, I mean—like, if she weren't mine at all," he says, "not even on the birth certificate—would you still want her?"

Frank swallows. "Of course I would," he says. "Just because I'm the only reasonable person on this bus doesn't mean I would have abandoned her."

"No," Gerard says, tilting his head up, "no—" He hesitates, then, with his mouth on Frank's neck and his nose brushing Frank's ear. "Frank—" Stretched out like this, shrugging becomes a full-body event, something Frank feels from his shoulders to his ankles. "I just—I couldn't do this without you," he says, finally. "I really fucking couldn't."

"Sure you could," Frank says, but he doesn't move to get up for a long time.


	3. Chapter 3

"Come on, Carl," Frank says, knowing he's begging and not caring. "Come on, you've got to stop for gas soon anyways, right?" Carl glances significantly at the gas gauge, which is sitting solidly at the halfway point. "See," Frank says, "see, you're half empty!"

"I prefer to think of it as half-full," Carl says, the smug bastard. "Why don't you just crack a window and smoke outside like everybody else does, Frankie?"

"Come on, Carl," Frank says, "you know that never works." All he wants in life is to stand in a parking lot and smoke a cigarette or three, and Carl's being a pissy little bitch about it. "Carl," he says, "Carl, come on."

"No can do, buddy," Carl says. "You're just going to have to tough it out like the rest of us." Frank sighs and goes back to the lounge. There's not even anything good on TV, this late at night; it's the weird in-between time after the late-night specials are all done and before the early morning news has started. The only half-decent thing is Law & Order, and it's an episode Frank's seen before.

"It's the wife," he says, "her and the super," but nobody's awake to care, and he winds up watching anyways.

Half an hour later, though, the bus starts slowing down, turns a corner and then another corner, and comes shakily to a halt. Frank peeks out the blinds and sees a BP sign, lets out a yelp, and goes running for the front of the bus. Carl's leaning against the side, smoking, and he laughs when Frank comes tumbling out.

"Here," he says, offering Frank a light. "You know we were planning to stop anyway, right?" He takes a drag, grins at Frank, lets it out slow and smug. "We stagger the gas, so that if one of us runs too low, the other one can keep going."

"Thank you," Frank says, taking a drag. "Thank you, I did not know that. Also, _fuck you_ , you fucking asshole." Carl doubles over laughing, and Frank heads over across the parking lot, where he can watch the buses and smoke in peace and quiet.

When he's halfway through his third cigarette, the door to the Baby Bus opens, and Gerard staggers out, looking bleary and exhausted. Frank waves at him, but he just stares around blankly.

"Gerard," Frank calls, waving again. "Hey, fuckhead, over here!" The swearing seems to get Gerard's attention: he waves back, then starts trudging across the parking lot to Frank.

"The fuck happened?" Gerard says, sleep-dull and blinking owlishly at Frank.

Frank shrugs, takes another drag. "Stopped for gas," he says. "I decided I wanted a smoke." Belatedly, Gerard notices the cigarette Frank's holding. He's staring at it like it's got the answer to life, the universe, and everything in there somewhere. Frank offers him the pack, but he shakes his head.

"I shouldn't," he says. "I mean, I've been meaning to quit for fucking forever, you know? And now, with Katie—" he trails off, shrugging. "I'm gonna try to stick to it, you know?" He's still staring at Frank's cigarette, though. "It smells amazing, though."

Frank offers it to him again, but he shakes his head. "No, just—here, let me." He steps forward, pressing himself against Frank, burying his nose in Frank's hair. His arms are around Frank's shoulders, and he drums out a rhythm on the back of Frank's neck while he takes a deep breath.

"God," he says, "fuck, this is so fucking gross, but it also smells so _good_ , you know?"

"Secondhand smoke," Frank says, and Gerard sighs happily. "You're disgusting," Frank says, conversationally, and feels Gerard grin against his neck.

"You love it, motherfucker," Gerard says, and, well. That's kind of true, is the thing.

"Five minutes, assholes," Carl yells, climbing back onto the bus. They stay there for four minutes and thirty seconds, and have to run across the parking lot to make it. They're both wheezing by the time they hit the stairs, and Carl's rolling his eyes at them, and it's stupid and uncomfortable and kind of ridiculously perfect.

*

"Frank," Ray says. "I love you like a brother, but if your daughter doesn't stop screaming sometime soon, I am not going the be held responsible for my actions."

"Me either," Mikey says. Bob's got his noise-canceling headphones on, which pretty much gives his opinion on the matter. Frank shifts Katie onto his other shoulder and flips them all off, but they don't seem to notice.

"You know, you guys could ride on the other bus for a few days," Gerard says. "It wouldn't kill you."

"I thought she was done being pissy," Mikey says. "She seemed good this morning."

"She was eating, Mikey," Frank says. "What did you expect?" Mikey just shrugs and goes back to his sidekick, though, and Frank goes back to walking a screaming Katie back and forth around the bus. She's little, so she still can't get that much volume, but she can apparently go for several hours without needing to stop or even _breathe_. Frank is a little bit impressed, and also going deaf in one ear.

Frank walks down the row of bunks, makes a quick tour of the back lounge, switches Katie to his other arm, walks back out, and smacks straight into Gerard.

"Here," Gerard says, his hand on Frank's shoulder. "Here, I'll take her for a bit." Frank doesn't hesitate, just hands her over; Gerard settles her in his arms. Katie doesn't miss a beat, keeps wailing up a storm.

"I'm gonna go call my mom," Frank says, reaching up into his bunk and feeling around for his phone. "Maybe she'll know what to do." Anyways, he swore up and down that he'd call her once a week until Katie was five, and it's been six days. Gerard nods and heads back toward the lounge, bouncing Katie gently in his arms.

"Frankie!" she says, "How are you? How's your little girl?"

"Loud," he says. "Loud as fuck." He can hear her from in here, still, yelling her head off while Gerard sings something to her.

"Frank!"

"She's not _here_ , ma," he says, sitting down on the edge of Gerard's bunk. "She's in the other room, with Gerard."

His mom _hmmm_ s down the phone line at him, and he rolls his eyes. Some things never change, and his mom's disapproving noises definitely fall in that category. "Well, why is she being noisy, then?"

Frank sighs, leaning backward and rolling his shoulders around. "No idea. She's clean and dry, doesn't want any food—"

"Did you burp her?"

"Mikey did, yeah." They'd remembered to put a towel on his shoulder, for a change, but she'd gotten his hair anyways; Mikey had raised his eyebrows and stared at her, and Gerard had laughed until he fell off the couch. "I don't know, ma. She just seems to be freaked out, you know?"

"Well, it's a little early for teething," his ma says, "but that could be it, I suppose."

"Yeah?" Frank gives up and settles all the way into Gerard's bunk, twisting around until he's on one side, with the phone propped against his ear. Gerard's pillow smells a lot like he does, sweaty and a little dirty; it's vaguely soothing. "Huh. Would that make her scream this much, though?"

"Oh, yes," she says, laughing down the phone line at him. "You screamed for three months straight, I swear."

"Yeah, well," Frank says. "She's not mine, though, ma."

Another disapproving noise, and she's rolling her eyes at him, Frank's sure of it. "Biologically, maybe not, but she's yours in every way that counts, Frankie." Frank rolls over; Gerard's mattress is weirdly lumpy. "Anyway," his mom says. "Give her the pacifier Donna sent you—you can pop it in the fridge for a bit first if you want, but don't let it get frozen."

"Thanks, ma," Frank says. "We'll give that a try. How are you all?" She gives him the run down on the neighbors and cousins and friends of the family, who's divorced, who's remarried, who's painting their house lime green. It's a long list—apparently the rest of the world is just as crazy as Frank's band, which is almost soothing—and by the time she's done, the noises from the other room have quieted down some.

"Listen, mom," he says. "I think she's calmed down a little, so I'm gonna go check on them all—I'll call you back in a few days?"

"You'd better," she says. "Let me know if it does turn out to be teeth; I'll send you some more things." No use telling her that they can stop at stores themselves; between the four of them, the moms of My Chem have already sent half a dozen boxes of Useful Baby Stuff. He says goodbye, tells her he loves her, and closes the phone, staring up at the bunk above Gerard's.

"Hey, Frank," Gerard says, sticking his head in the curtains and freaking Frank the fuck out. "Sorry, just—you know that she's yours too, right?" Frank glares at him, trying to get his breathing back to normal. Gerard picks the weirdest fucking times to actually be stealthy—most of the time, Frank can hear him coming a mile away.

"The fuck, motherfucker," Frank says, sitting up. "There's a rule against that shit." Rule number 4 on the list they made when they first started touring in actual buses: Knock First, Even For Bunks. There's only so many times you can deal with being interrupted while you're jerking off, after all.

"You were on the phone with your mom, asshole," Gerard says, rolling his eyes. "Also, this is my bunk, so the rules totally don't apply." He helps Frank sit back up, but stays standing where he is, leaning into the bunk, into Frank's space. "I mean it, though, really," he says, frowning just a little. "I heard you, when I was walking out—she's your kid, too, Frank," he says.

"Yeah, I know," Frank says. His throat feels a little tight. "Two-parent families are more stable, more likely to get approved by CPS—"

"Bullshit," Gerard says. "Or, I mean, it's not, but that's not what I'm talking about." He rests his hand on Frank's shoulder. "You're her parent, too, Frank."

Frank rolls his eyes, swings his legs around to get out of the bed. Gerard doesn't move, though, even when Frank squirms around and sticks his legs out into the aisle. He leans in, bracing his hands on the bunk above, and glares at Frank.

"I mean it, asshole," he says. "What, you think you just look good on paper?" Frank shrugs—put it like that, and he sounds like a whiney brat, but at the same time he's _not_ Katie's dad, not the way Gerard is. "Well, you're wrong," Gerard says. "Besides, you don't look _that_ good on paper."

Frank kicks Gerard in the knee, but not very hard. "Shut up, fucker," he says. "I'm gorgeous." Gerard takes a deep breath, opens his mouth—then snaps it shut and backs away. Frank drops out of the bunk, then stumbles against Gerard when the bus hits a bad stretch of road. Gerard leans against him, heavy and exhausted; it's been a long couple of days.

"What did your mom say?" Gerard asks, his face against Frank's hair. "About Katie and stuff?"

Frank has to swallow a few times before he can answer; bus air is always weirdly dry. "She said she might be teething."

Gerard nods. "That could be it, yeah." He yawns. "She screamed herself out, I think—just passed out in my arms, it was hilarious. Poor kid, though." He shakes his head slowly, resting his pointy chin on Frank's shoulder. "That's gotta suck."

"Yeah," Frank says. "But your mom sent us that stuff, remember? Apparently we can stick it in the fridge, and it'll help." Gerard nods again, but doesn't make any effort to move. He's probably exhausted—they all are, after two straight days of fussy baby.

"Gee," he says eventually. "Gerard, come on, if we stay here we'll just wind up falling over the next time we hit a pothole." Gerard takes a deep breath, then straightens up. From the other room, they hear Katie starting to cry again. "Come on," Frank says again. "Let's go check on your daughter's teeth."

" _Our_ daughter," Gerard says, and pushes Frank ahead of him, his hand warm on Frank's shoulder.

*

Forty-five minutes until they're onstage in Detroit, and of course Katie's having a hissy fit like none other. She's been fed and burped—today, Ray gets to be the one with baby spit on his neck—and her diaper's clean, for the moment. It's slightly less stressful now that they can see the tiny white tooth poking out of her gum, but that doesn't mean it isn't loud.

"Fuck," Bob says. "Where's her little chew toy?" Mikey digs one out of the pocket of the bag, but Frank snatches it away from him before he can stick it in her mouth. There's a crowd of venue staff outside the door, whispering to each other and trying to pretend that they're not listening at the door.

"Can one of you guys wash this off, please?" They go from staring past him to staring _at_ him, and then a guy with a bright green fauxhawk reaches out and takes the pacifier from Frank.

"Sure thing," he says. "Just be a second." He disappears around the corner.

"Thanks," Frank says, and shuts the door behind him. The hallway is suddenly, eerily silent, and Frank stares at the crowd of gawkers until one by one they remember stuff that they're supposed to be doing and wander off. The guy with the green hair—"Jake", he says when Frank asks—comes back with a clean pacifier and a cup of ice, and Frank thanks him before ducking back into the room.

"Here," he says, "one baby chew toy, clean enough for human consumption again." Katie quiets down for a minute when she first gets it, but then spits it back out into Brian's hands, and oh, god, it's going to be a long evening.

Brian tries, and so does everybody else, but nothing seems to work; she calms down when Frank takes her, but only a little bit. Gerard's in the other room, warming up, but Katie's screaming her head off, still, so Frank goes over to the door. There's a sign taped to the door—WARMING UP DON'T DISTURB THIS MEANS YOU—but Frank ignores it and bangs on the door until Gerard pokes his head out, disheveled and confused.

"Can you warm up with her?" Frank asks, holding Katie out. Gerard takes her automatically, supporting her neck and cradling her against his chest. "Sorry, just—she's been going for a while, and Bob's starting to get the crazy eyes again."

Gerard sighs. "Sure, yeah," he says. "We'll go out back, maybe walk around a little— _with_ security, Christ, do I look like a fucking idiot?" He shifts her onto his shoulder, patting her back soothingly, and grins at Frank—tired, frustrated, but still glad.

"I'm not going to answer that," Frank says, and steps back when Gerard tries to kick him. "Twenty minutes, okay?"

"Half an hour, fucker," Gerard says, heading off down the hallway, and then, "Now, Katie, that's not a word to repeat, okay?"

Frank watches him go, grinning, and then ducks into the room he'd been using to warm up. Gerard's going to wander around out back with Katie, singing her their songs and getting stared at by venue security, and then he's going to have to rush back in when Katie's diaper needs changing, and he's not going to know where anything is. Better to set all the stuff out now, so they can get her changed, hand her back to Schechter, and still have time to wash his hands before they have to go onstage.

He's just trying to figure out where Gerard has stashed the baby wipes—they're not in the pocket where they usually are, so he's reduced to sorting through the main compartment, where they're probably buried under action figures and water bottles and other shit that has absolutely fuck all to do with changing a baby—when Gerard's phone rings.

"What the hell is the point of having a goddamn phone if you never—" Frank says, digging it out of the bag and looking at the display. CHERYL (CPS), it blinks, and he stares at it, the sounds of _Somewhere Over the Rainbow_ echoing in his ears, before he flips it open. "Hello?"

"Gerard? It's Cheryl," she says, "and I know this is a bad time, but—"

"It's Frank, actually," he says. "Gerard's with Katie, trying to get her to calm down. If you want, though, I can try to figure out—"

"No, no," she says, "It's fine, I can tell you." She makes a funny little noise, like she's having trouble breathing, and Frank holds the phone tighter, waiting for it, bracing for impact. "The evaluation just came back, and you're approved—if you want Katie, still, you can keep her."

"Okay, I'll—really?" he asks, the reality of it sinking in. "Wait, fuck, really?"

"Yes, really," she says, and now that Frank knows, he feels like he can hear her smiling. "I mean, you'll still have to check in with us a couple times a month, just so we can make sure—but I don't think we're going to have any problems on that front."

"No," Frank says, not even really hearing her, listening to the blood rushing in his ears. "No, yeah, I mean—can I call you back?" he asks, suddenly. "Or, like—I just have to go find Gee, now," he says.

"I understand, Frank," Cheryl says. "Have him call me when you guys get the chance, okay?"

"Yeah, sure," he says, and then, remembering, "hey, listen, thank you so much. Seriously—"

"Congratulations, Frank," she says, and then the line goes dead.

For a second, Frank just stands there, looking at the small mountain of baby stuff on the counter, under the row of lights from the makeup mirror. _Their_ baby stuff, for their kid—for Katie. He blinks at it, grins, then stuffs the phone in his pocket and runs back into the other room.

"Which way did they go?" he asks. Everybody stares at him, and he thinks for a second about explaining, but no, he can't—he has to tell Gerard first.

"Outside, I think," Mikey says finally, shrugging.

"Down the hall, second left, and then right at the poster of the Who," Brian says, more helpfully. "Is this something I should know about?"

"Later," Frank promises, already out the door. The hallways are busy, but Frank's small and fast, and he gets outside in record time, exploding out the doors and smacking straight into security. Fortunately, the guy—his nametag says RALPH, and he's built like an honest-to-God brick shithouse—just turns around and raises an eyebrow.

"Gerard Way," Frank says quickly, "the dude with the baby and the fucked up hair. Which way did he go?"

Ralph glances over at his partner, who shrugs. "Back inside, I think," he says. "He was saying something about food?"

"Fuck, okay," Frank says, turning back around. "Which door?" Ralph points him to the other door, over stage right, and Frank takes off running, dodging around the clusters of people standing here and there. Ralph must call ahead on the walkie-talkie, because Frank sees a whole bunch of security but they just wave him past, and one of them even opens the door for him.

Inside, he pauses and checks his watch—fifteen minutes, fuck—then grabs the nearest person who looks like he knows what's going on.

"Dude with a baby," he says. "Probably singing, maybe looking for waffles."

"Straight ahead, hang a left before the stairwell, and then it's the third door on your right," the guy says, not even looking up from his phone. God bless the music industry, seriously, Frank thinks, and God bless their ridiculous rockstar lifestyle, where so long as nothing's broken or bleeding, nobody really cares.

The third room on the right, though, while it does have waffles, is depressingly empty of both babies and rockstars. Frank sighs, then turns around and walks straight into Gerard.

"Frank, hey," Gerard says, "I thought I saw you running by." Katie's propped up on his shoulder, chewing peacefully on his hair; Frank doesn't even think, just steps forward and wraps his arms around both of them. Gerard rolls with it, shifting his grip on Katie until he can put an arm around Frank's shoulders, too.

"You okay?" Gerard asks. "Do you want us to—we can stall for a little, if you need some time." Frank looks up at him, grinning as hard as he can, feeling like he's going to start fucking levitating any second now. He wants to play the show right now, wants to play _ten_ shows, wants to fling himself around the stage and climb the walls from sheer fucking glee. At the same time, though, he wants to stay right where he is, with Gerard and Katie, holding them together and never moving again. "Frank?"

"We get to keep her, Gee," he says, because Gerard's actually starting to look a little worried. "Gee, she's _ours_." Gerard blinks a few times, frowning, mouthing Frank's words back at him like they're in French or fucking Swahili, like he's trying to get the sounds to make sense.

"Ours?" he says, and then he starts grinning, looking between Frank and Katie. "Frankie, how—"

"Cheryl called," Frank says, digging the phone out of his pocket. "She says that if we want her—and I figured that—" Gerard is nodding frantically, snatching the phone out of Frank's hand and dialing with his thumb.

"Cheryl, hey," he says, "Frank just found me—is it true?" He listens, nodding, and his grin somehow gets even bigger. Frank catches his eye and beams back, bouncing on his heels a little. "That's great, yeah," Gerard says. Behind Frank, the door opens: when he turns around, it's Bob and Ray and Mikey, looking confused and concerned and, in Mikey's case, more than a little smug. Behind them, Brian is holding up his watch and pointing, eyebrows raised.

Gerard nods again, gives Brian the thumbs-up. "Listen, Cheryl, we need to go play the show now, so—yeah, great, sure." She says something else, and Gerard grins, looking at Frank. "I know, man," he says. "Yeah, you too. M-hmm. Great, bye." He turns off the phone, tosses it onto the table, resettles Katie in his arms.

"Well?" Bob says. "And? What?" Gerard takes a deep breath, then hesitates, biting his lip. And dramatic moments are great, and all, but on the other hand they have to be on stage in about two minutes. Frank rolls his eyes.

"We're keeping her," he says, ignoring Gerard's squawk of outrage. "That was Cheryl, we've got the okay—" and then he can't breathe anymore, caught up in a laughing, giddy group-hug, all five of them wrapped together around Katie, talking over each other.

"Congratulations, motherfuckers," Brian says, leaning against the doorframe, "now give me your daughter and go make some music." He's smiling, though, and he takes Katie carefully, like she's something infinitely fucking precious, which she goddamn fucking is.

They make it to the stage with about a minute to spare, and wait for the last adjustments, lights and mikes and cables. Gerard's and Mikey talk quietly while they get their earpieces and everything; ahead of them, Ray and Bob are having a pow-wow, hair weaving together. Frank stands as still as he can, but his fingers are twitching and he keeps bouncing up and down without meaning too, energy fizzing.

"Frank," Gerard says, grabbing his arm, "Frank, hey." He pulls them into a corner, and for a second they just stand there, grinning at each other like idiots.

"Sorry," Frank says, "for, you know, stealing your thunder."

Gerard shrugs. "I've got lots of thunder," he says. "You can have as much as you want." Frank grins, and Gerard smiles back—and then, without any kind of warning, he's pushing Frank against a pillar, kissing him, sudden and messy and unexpected and perfect. Frank kisses him back, grabbing onto Gerard's shoulders and pulling them together, biting Gerard's lower lip and laughing into his mouth.

It only lasts a second or two, and then Ray's pulling them apart. He's rolling his eyes at them, but he's got it, too, that same crazy energy that makes it impossible to do anything but grin. His hair looks more excited than usual, even.

"Guys," he says, "guys, me and Bob were thinking—what if we open with Best Day Ever?"

"Dude," Frank says, "fuck, that's a fucked up song." It makes a weird kind of sense, though—like a secret, like a celebration only they know about. "I'm in," he says.

Beside him, Gerard nods, and then the lights are going down and it's fucking showtime.

*

They blow through the song, faster than ever, all of them beaming at each other, too happy to even know what to do with it. The kids are all blown away—none of them were expecting it, but they go fucking insane, dancing and laughing and screaming along. At the end, Gerard stands up on an amp, waving his arms around until they settle down.

"Thank you very fucking much, everybody," he says. "That's a very special song, and this is a very special night for us, and it all goes out to a very special lady—Miss Katherine Elizabeth, who can youtube it when she's older." None of them know what the hell he's talking about it, but they scream anyways, and when Gerard asks them to say, "Hi, Katie!", they count off with him and shout as loud as they can. Bob crashes his cymbals and counts off, and then they're going again, song after song, flying forward.

Frank always loves the crowds they get, loves the way the kids love the music, loves looking out into the crowd and seeing a sea of motion. Tonight, though, is even better, somehow. The crowd may not know what's going on, but they're sure as hell picking up on _something_ ; they're on fire, laughing and crying and waving frantically. Everywhere Frank looks, he sees people grinning, fucking beaming, and it just makes him play better, harder, wilder. Gerard sees it, too—he keeps asking them to bring the lights up so he can see, "all your beautiful fucking faces, come on you guys, let me see how you're doing."

A few songs in, Gerard comes swaggering over to Frank's side of the stage and pulls him in for a kiss, hard and fast and deep. It's not that out of the ordinary, for their version of ordinary: the crowd screams, Frank grins, and Mikey pretends he doesn't know any of them.

This time, though, Gerard stays put. No sauntering back over to the other side to do something inappropriate to Ray's hair, no poking Mikey in the side: he stays draped over Frank's shoulders for two verses and a chorus, singing into Frank's ears. Frank leans back against him, closes his eyes, keeps on playing, feeling like he's going to split out of his skin and start fucking floating any second now.

When they finish, Gerard squeezes Frank tight, shouting something about the future into the mike. Before he goes back center stage, he kisses the side of Frank's neck—nothing dirty, just the brush of lips on sweaty skin, but it feels pornographic, and all of a sudden Frank's guitar is the only thing keeping him from being hugely inappropriate in front of several thousand teenagers.

The rest of the show is the same way. They're all on fire, electric and insane, feeding off each other's energy and going higher, harder, faster. Gerard spends even more time than usual on Frank's side, wrapped around Frank like a big smelly blanket every chance he gets. His hands in Frank's hair, on Frank's hips, brushing his fingertips along the insides of Frank's elbows. Frank leans into it, goes along with it, bites Gerard's neck when he gets the chance and feels Gerard shake against him, hears his voice crack and stutter. It's nothing different from anything they've done before—the same actions, the same reactions—but it all feels new, uncertain and dangerous and hot.

As soon as they get offstage, Gerard is plastering Frank up against the wall, pressed close enough that Frank can feel him breathing, can feel his heartbeat, hot and frantic. Gerard doesn't try to kiss him, though, which Frank kind of expects. Instead, Gerard seems happy to just get as close as he can, breathing Frank in, counting on the wall to hold them both up. His hands are on Frank's back, under the hem of his shirt, pushing it up so that Frank's feeling cold concrete under his skin, and, seriously, what the fuck is Gerard waiting for?

Gerard takes a deep breath and pulls back, and he's got stars in his eyes—actual motherfucking stars, Frank would swear. He can't look away.

"Frank," he says, "Frank, we get to keep her."

Frank's throat is weirdly tight, and he doesn't think it's from screaming along through nearly every song. "Yeah," he says. "We do." He swallows. "Do you want to go talk to the guys?"

Gerard drops his head back onto Frank's shoulder and says something that sounds a lot like "no," and Frank sighs. On the one hand, it's not like he's not enjoying this whole human blanket thing Gerard's got going on, but on the other hand, he'd really appreciate some clue as to what the fuck is going on. He grabs Gerard by his hair and hauls his head back, lifting him up until he's not trying to talk through skin anymore, and asks him to repeat himself.

Gerard rolls his eyes. "No, Frank," he says. "I want to go back to the bus, and I want to see our daughter," and damn if that word doesn't make Frank's heart skip, just a little, "and then I want to go into the back lounge with you and not come out until fucking Utah."

"Um," Frank stares at him.

"Frank," Gerard says, "Frank, seriously. We're raising a kid together, and we make out at a drop of a hat, and I trust you more than anyone on the planet except maybe Mikey. And Ray," he adds, "and, I mean, probably also Brian and Bob and, like, my mom—um." Frank raises an eyebrow, hoping against hope that Gerard will start making sense sometime soon. "Also," Gerard says, pressing his hips forward, not much but enough, "also, I want to blow you."

"That's beautiful, Gee," Frank says. "But don't you think maybe you're forgetting something?"

Gerard stares at him for a second, then rolls his eyes. "Of course I love you, fucker," he says, leaning in again to press his lips against Frank's neck. "What, you didn't know that already? I tell you that all the fucking time."

"Yeah, but—"

"But nothing, dumbass. Now, come on." Gerard pulls back, tugs Frank away from the wall and back onto his feet. "I have to call Cheryl, and we have to celebrate, and then I really want to get naked with you." He's pulling his phone out even while he walks away, giving one-armed hugs to Mikey and Ray and letting Bob pick him up and spin him around.

It's a pretty compelling argument, really. Frank grins and follows him.

*

It's not that easy, of course. By the time they get outside, there's already a line of kids stretching along the side of the venue, clutching their CDs and their ticket stubs, waving past the security guys. Frank stares after Gerard, heading back to the bus, then sighs and goes over to them.

Normally, he loves this stuff—seeing the kids, talking to them, being an actual person instead of some dude rocking out onstage. And the kids are just the same, really, nervous and excited and giggling and Frank fucking loves his job, seriously, but right now—

"BOB _BRYAR_ ," a girl down the line screams, and sure enough, Bob's standing next to Frank, one hand on his shoulder, trying not to glare at the flashing cameras. Frank turns to him, trying to figure out what's wrong; Bob basically never comes out on the line.

"Katie's freaking out," Bob says, "and Gerard's too busy calling everyone he knows to deal with her." He takes Frank by the shoulder and spins him around, pointing him back towards the bus. "I'll take over here."

"Bob," Frank says, grabbing Bob's shoulder and squeezing, "Bob Bryar, you're a motherfucking rock star."

Bob rolls his eyes. "No shit, Iero," he says. "Now get the fuck back to the bus." He's grumbling, but his eyes are shining, and he lets Frank hug him before shoving him away.

"Who's Katie?" somebody shouts, as Frank's walking away, and the question gets picked up by the rest of them, people shouting up and down the line.

"Katie," Bob says, loud enough that Frank can hear him, "is a very special little lady." Frank grins, and walks a little faster.

Ray and Mikey are heading towards him; Frank grabs them both and hugs them as hard as he can, first Ray and then Mikey.

"We're going to rescue Bob," Ray says.

"By which we actually mean we're going to rescue the cameras from Bob," Mikey adds. Frank nods.

"Come back when you can," he says, and keeps going towards the bus.

Gerard's there, and so is Brian, the two of them handing the phone back and forth, looking over a stack of papers at the table.

"Yeah, Cheryl," Gerard says, "no, that makes sense." He gestures at Katie, grumbling in her carseat. She whacks Frank on the nose with her pacifier when he picks her up, but he doesn't mind. She's theirs, now—she can spit on him all she wants.

"Hey, kiddo," he says. "Want something to eat?"

By the time she's fed and cleaned back up, the guys have come back, and Gerard and Brian have finished with the paperwork, so it's time for celebrating. Katie gets passed around the room a dozen times, and takes it pretty well, but when she starts grizzling, Gerard takes her back. He's sitting on Frank, now, the two of them squashed together in an armchair with Katie on top. Frank can't really breathe, but it's definitely worth it.

Naturally, Mikey gets Mrs. Way on the phone just as Katie's drifting off. Gerard tries to juggle the phone and his daughter at the same time, but it doesn't really work.

"Here," Frank says, "Gee, let me." Gerard smiles at him and hands Katie over, and Frank holds her while Gerard talks to his mother, telling her about the adoption and the show and everything. Frank tries to look at something else, anything else, but it's a lost cause—he can stare at Gerard, or he can stare at Katie, but that's basically it.

Gerard hangs up the phone, drops it onto the table, looks at Frank. Frank looks back, and suddenly it's just like the green room all over again: sudden tension, sharp and indefinable, making Frank bite his lip and Gerard fidget. His knees are draped across Frank's lap, and he kicks his feet a little, bouncing his heels against Frank's shins.

"Katie's asleep," he says, finally, and when Frank looks down to check, he finds her passed out on his arms, frowning a little in her sleep.

"Huh," Frank says. "We should probably put her down for the night," he says, watching her face. "I mean, the guys will probably be up for a while, and we don't want them to wake her up." Gerard nods, then takes Katie back carefully and stands up.

"We're going to go put her to bed, guys," Gerard says. His ears are turning pink, and he's not making eye contact. Bob and Mikey are hiding smiles, and Ray is out-and-out grinning. Brian rolls his eyes, but waves them away, and Frank grabs the car seat and follows Gerard.

Katie makes a little noise when Gerard sets her down in the crib, and Frank peers over the edge, watching her fuss at the blankets without actually waking up. It hits him, all over again, that she's _theirs_ , now—she's his daughter, his and Gerard's, for the rest of their lives.

"It's fucking amazing, isn't it?" Frank turns around, planning to tell Gerard that, yes, it is—but Gerard is standing _right there_ , closer than Frank was expecting, and he takes all of Frank's momentum and uses it to reverse their positions, spinning Frank around and walking him backwards. They hit the door with a thump, and it rattles in its hinges; Frank thinks he hears some catcalling from the front room, but then Gerard's kissing him, and he's not really listening to anything that far away.

The kiss is oddly chaste: they're just barely leaning into each other, touching at the lips and the knees. Gerard puts his hands on Frank's face, folding his arms awkwardly between their bodies. He's kind of elbowing Frank in the chest, but he's also licking slow and careful at the corner of Frank's mouth, like it's the single most important thing he'll ever do. He shivers when Frank touches his arm, and sucks in a breath when Frank scrapes his fingernails gently down his back.

They kiss and they kiss and they kiss, hesitant and awkward and aching, and then Bob bangs on the other side of the door hard enough that Frank whacks his head on it.

"There's a bed back there, fuckers," Bob says. "Use it, or I will end you." Gerard cups his hand around the back of Frank's neck, rubbing gently, and tips his head down against Frank's shoulder.

"Fuck you, asshole," Frank says, leaning back into Gerard's grip. "Katie's back here! What kind of perverts do you think we are?"

"Use the bed," Bob says, implacable. "You're traumatizing Mikey." There's an indistinct shout from the other room, and Bob laughs a little. "Ray, too," he adds. "Seriously."

Gerard doesn't step back at all: he's staring at Frank's mouth from about three inches away, close enough that every time Gerard breathes out, Frank gets goosebumps down his neck. He's got his arms braced on the door, crossed behind Frank's head, and he's pressing his hips towards Frank, slow and insistent, and, huh. Maybe they _are_ going to fuck in here, actually.

"I mean," Gerard says, soft and dark, "it's not like she's going to remember it, right?"

Frank swallows hard. "Yeah, exactly." Outside, he hears Bob walking back down the bus, hears the music in the main room get that much louder. "Plus, she's asleep." He pushes off from the door—it rattles again, and he hears the guys yelling at them again, but oh well—and steers Gerard over to the bed, one slow step at a time until he's sitting down. Frank pushes his knees apart and stands between them, leaning down to kiss Gerard again and then again, sliding his hand just under the collar of Gerard's shirt. They tilt gradually backwards, still kissing, until Gerard is flat on his back on the bed and Frank is braced over him, hips pressed together and feet still on the floor.

"Wait," Gerard says, when they pull apart for a second, "wait, hang on, I'm about to fall on my fucking ass, here." He somehow manages to wriggle back onto the bed—rubbing every inch of his body up against Frank along the way—and sprawls there, propped up on his elbows and staring at Frank. "Well?"

Frank launches himself forward, knee-walking awkwardly up the bed so he can straddle Gerard and lean down and kiss him again, biting at Gerard's lips, pressing their hips together again and feeling Gerard hard against him. He hasn't felt this ridiculously desperate since sometime in the eleventh grade, but Gerard is just as bad, shoving his hands up Frank's shirt and gasping into Frank's ear every time Frank grinds down against him.

It's awkward as hell, really. Both of them are trying to be quiet, for Katie and in the vain hope that the guys won't hear every single detail, and the bed is not really that big _or_ that comfortable, no matter what the rental place said. Frank's shaking, literally fucking trembling with how much he wants this, and Gerard keeps blinking and taking shallow unsteady breaths. They can't manage to stop kissing, not even for a second, and somehow four hands makes taking Frank's pants off harder than usual, not easier.

Suddenly, Gerard's eyes go wide, and he's shoving Frank backward, sitting up. Frank looks over toward the crib, trying to listen and hear what's going on. There's nothing, though, unless Gerard's freaky bat hearing is picking up something—but then Gerard yanks Frank's shirt over his head and shoves his hands down Frank's pants.

"Move, fucker," he says, when Frank stares at him. "Blowjobs, remember?" He tugs at Frank's jeans, frowning, then reaches up and pushes until Frank's flat on his back on the bed. "Work with me here, come on," he says, drumming his fingers on the bare skin at Frank's hip. As soon as Frank lifts hips up, Gerard is there, hooking his fingers under pants and boxers together and pulling them down. Frank doesn't even have time to kick his feet free before Gerard is right there, pressing Frank's hips into the bed and sucking his cock.

Gerard is sloppy and enthusiastic, like he maybe hasn't done this in a while, but he's been thinking about it a whole lot. There's that same sort of gap between theory and practice that Frank remembers from his own blowjob-hiatuses: knowing what to do, but not quite having the muscle memory to accomplish it. Gerard licks his way up one side of Frank's cock and down the other, his fingernails digging into Frank's thighs, making little noises to himself every so often. Frank slides his fingers into Gerard's hair, tugging just a little, and he gets a bite to the hip for that one, but he also gets Gerard's mouth on his dick.

Gerard sucks hard on the tip of Frank's cock and then slides his mouth down, pausing every so often, breathing in through his nose, like he's trying to remember how to coordinate everything. It's awkward, sure, but it's also really hot, and it's also been kind of a while, and Frank just played a concert with Gerard basically dry-humping him every second chorus. It's really no surprise that he gets close fast, digging his heels into the sheets and biting his own wrist to keep mostly quiet. When it's too much, he tugs on Gerard's hair again, pulling him back, trying to be polite for a whole ten seconds of his adult life. Gerard lets himself be pulled back, but grabs Frank's wrist when he goes to jerk himself off, pinning it to the bed and glaring up at Frank.

"Fuck you," Gerard says. "Save that for when my voice is cracking." He drags his thumb along the inside of Frank's thigh and grins when Frank shivers. "We don't have a show until Tuesday," he says, licking his lips. "So if it's all the same to you, I'd really rather swallow."

He doesn't wait for Frank to answer, just slides his mouth back down, sucking and then swallowing, hot and wet and tight and amazing. Frank's hips jerk, and he twists his fingers tighter in Gerard's hair, giving up on politeness in favor of coming in Gerard's mouth.

Gerard chokes, just a little, which Frank could have predicted—swallowing is one of those things that's great in theory but usually fairly messy in practice—but he crawls up the bed and flops down on his side next to Frank, wiping his face on his shirt and grinning.

"Um," Frank says. "Um, wow." Gerard's grabbed the bottle of water from the headboard and is swishing it around in his mouth, cheeks pushed out; he kicks Frank in the shins, rolls his eyes, and swallows.

"Don't sound so impressed, fucker," he says. "I mean, there's totally room for improvement, but that doesn't mean you have to be a dick about it."

"Speaking of dicks," Frank says, sliding his hand down Gerard's side. Gerard groans at the pun, covering his face with his hand, but he lifts his hips up, pushing into Frank's hand.

"Fuck you," Gerard says. "You're going to condemn our daughter to a lifetime of puns and social isolation and— _oh_ , oh fuck." Frank grins, sliding his hand back down Gerard's dick, twisting just a little. Gerard arches his back, thrusting up, fucking Frank's hand, and he keeps making all these tiny choked-off noises that are both completely ridiculous and extremely fucking hot. He's hard and desperate, twisting and shivering while Frank jacks him off, twisting his fingers in the sheets. Frank presses his fingers just a little lower, cupping Gerard's balls, and Gerard fucking _moans_ , low and dirty and way too loud.

"Shut the fuck up," Frank says, leaning in to kiss him. "Jesus, and _I'm_ going to traumatize her?" He bites Gerard's lip, then licks it, not waiting to hear the answer. Gerard still groans, but it's at least muffled, some. Frank keeps kissing him, slow and wet, his hand steady on Gerard's dick, twisting and squeezing until Gerard jerks his head away, panting, hissing through his teeth.

"Fuck," he says, "fucking— _Frank_ , fuck—" and then he shakes his hand, pulls his hand free of the tangle of their bodies and bites down on the heel of his palm, hard enough that Frank can see the skin around his teeth going white from pressure.

"You okay?" he asks, but doesn't stop moving his hand; Gerard nods his head jerkily, still chewing on his own hand, eyes closed. Frank leans in, kissing the angle of Gerard's jaw, the smooth sweep of his neck, scraping his teeth against Gerard's skin just enough to win a full-body shiver. He bites down just below Gerard's ear, licks carefully over the spot, bites down again and sucks hard, holding the skin between his teeth. Gerard shivers, his hips stuttering; Frank grins against his pulse, moves down a quarter of an inch, and does it all again.

It's been a long, day—Frank hasn't had to wait this long since sophomore year of high school, and maybe not even then—and Gerard spent the entire show grinding on Frank. It's no surprise that Gerard lasts a whole five minutes before he's coming all over Frank's fist and his own stomach. Frank grins and strokes him through it, his hand slick and wet, Gerard shaking occasionally as he relaxes into the bed.

"Okay," he says finally, opening his eyes again, "okay, fine, that was awesome." He's sweaty and covered in spunk; his hair is greasy and mussed; he's got a row of tooth-shaped dents across the ball of his hand and the beginnings of a pretty ridiculous hickey starting behind his left ear.

Frank curls up beside him, wiping his hand on Gerard's shirt and flinging one leg across Gerard's knees. They breathe together, cooling back down, skin sticking and pulling just a little when Gerard shifts his weight.

Frank's halfway hard again, just from watching Gerard get off, from touching him and kissing him and _feeling_ him. He grinds against Gerard's hip a little, experimentally; not quite yet, but maybe in a little while. Gerard makes an interested noise and pulls Frank a little closer, and that's when Katie starts crying. Frank looks up immediately, whacking his forehead against Gerard's chin.

For a second they stare at each other, hesitant and carnal—and then Frank rolls away, hunting for his boxers, handing Gerard's over when he finds them first. His, for whatever reason, are on the night table, halfway inside the open drawer. He grabs them, turns them right side out, pulls them on, and knee-walks across the bed to join Gerard at the crib.

"Shhh," Gerard says, "shhh, don't cry, we're right here." He holds Katie against his shoulder, rubbing her back in slow, careful circles. "We've gonna take care of you, don't worry."

And they will. If Frank's sure of anything, he's sure of that.

**Author's Note:**

> This story is [now available as a podfic](http://desert-neon.livejournal.com/28287.html), recorded by desert_neon! Yay!


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